Mothering Sunday Flowers

Today is Mothering Sunday here in the UK, and my son sent me a lovely card from my son Hayden. He also sent me this beautiful bouquet of spring flowers - aren't I lucky?! Thank you very much, Hayden!



Mothering Sunday has been celebrated for centuries here in the UK. The name may derive from 16th century worshippers going "a-mothering", or attending a service at their mother churches, on the middle Sunday of the Lent season. However it's origins lie in antiquity, in a pagan Roman festival dedicated to the mother goddess Cybele, that gradually became absorbed into the Christian calendar

In days gone by many children and young people were employed as servants in big houses, or as apprentices living away from home. Employees worked much longer hours then and were allowed very little time off as there were no such thing as holidays. But they were entitled to one day off a year to attend church with their families, and that day eventually acquired the name Mothering Sunday

Often, as they walked home, the children would gather wild primroses or daffodils from the side of the road to take to church or to give their mothers. In this way Mothering Sunday became firmly associated with flowers. During our church service this morning, every mother - including grandmothers and great-grandmothers, was presented with a little pot of primroses

Mothers Day, as distinct from Mothering Sunday, is a secular celebration that began in the 1920s as a way to encourage everyone to remember their mothers. These days, of course, we use the terms interchangeably