In the UK Mothering Sunday, or Mother’s Day as it is now often called, falls in March or April on the fourth Sunday in Lent (Laetare Sunday) which is exactly 3 weeks before Easter Sunday. 

Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day, are really two quite different celebrations that seem to have morphed into one - the first, ‘Mothering Sunday’ being a religious event celebrating the return to our ‘mother’ church; whilst the later, ‘Mother’s Day’ celebrating our own mother’s.

We can date the celebration of ‘motherly figures’ back to ancient times – the Greeks held festivals of worship every spring to celebrate Rhea (the mother of the Gods), the Romans honoured their own mother goddess (Cybele) in March from 250BC.

During the 16th Century Christians started a festival known as Mothering Sunday to give thanks to the Virgin Mary (Mother Mary), and the spread of Christianity through Europe meant Mothering Sunday became an official day.

Laetare Sunday (Laetare means ‘to rejoice’ in Latin) during Lent, was a day when people would return to their ‘mother’ church (the main church or cathedral to where they lived or were brought up), often where they were baptised, to bring offerings of thanks - they would also meet up with their families to celebrate and rejoice. If you took part in this event, it was described as ‘to have gone a-mothering’!

Later, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were allowed a day off from their duties to visit their own ‘mother’ church with their families – sometimes this was the only day whole families could be properly together due to conflicting working hours and servants getting very little time off work. A simnel cake was often baked by young domestic staff to take to their families on Mothering Sunday.

Mother’s Day, as we often call it today, is about celebrating our mums (step-mums, mother figures, carers etc) and to show them how much we love and appreciate them. Mother’s Day can involve cards, flowers and small gifts, possibly restaurants, and hopefully, more importantly spending time with those we love and care for. I spoke to a few mothers about their views on Mother’s Day, and they all said the same - “I don’t want lots of expensive shop-purchased gifts, a hand-made card or painting from my child is so much more precious.”

The term ‘Mother’s Day’ is an American name, created in 1908 by Anna Jarvis, from West Virginia, USA who wanted to celebrate her own mother who died in 1905. Anna wanted the day to be about honouring the sacrifices mothers made for their children – this was not to be a religious event. It took a while for people to take her seriously, but in 1914 ‘Mother’s Day’ was made official by US President Woodrow Wilson – Mother’s Day in America is in the month of May. Many countries around the world now celebrate Mother’s Day, on a variety of different days and months.

The tradition of Mothering Sunday in the UK and Europe dwindled at the beginning of the 20th Century. Constance Penswick-Smith, the daughter of the Vicar of Coddington, Nottinghamshire, was saddened by this – though she was very against a May Mother’s Day in Britain (like America), feeling it would commercialise the Christian event of Mothering Sunday. 

Constance created the Mothering Sunday Movement and in 1920 she wrote a book named ‘The Revival of Mothering Sunday’ and she also set up the ‘Society for the Observance of Mothering Sunday’. By the time 1938 arrived (and the very year that Constance died), every parish in the UK celebrated Mothering Sunday.

Today, in churches, Mothering Sunday is the time when people give thanks for the Church as Mother, the Virgin Mary as the mother of Jesus, to Jesus who protects like a mother, and we also give thanks for our own mothers/carers.

Mothering Sunday is in two weeks time, on Sunday 27th March.