Mother's Day

by Peter Lockhart

In some ways it is strange to have days like mothers day – a day that we remember and give thanks for the place of mothers in our lives. Why strange? Well one would think that if mothers constantly were given the respect and love as human beings we would not need a special day to remember what they have done for us. So maybe part of Mother’s Day is a kind of confession that we don’t always appreciate mothers as we should and maybe also a recognition that it is harder to thank some mothers than others.

This problem of how well we love one another is constantly before us as people and human communities have long invented days of celebration and thanksgiving to remember mothers, fathers, widows, war veterans and the list goes on. The church does this as well in its calendar in the rhythm of the liturgical year as we have celebrations at Christmas at Easter and Pentecost, along with the many other feasts days that we can have. All of these celebrations are about jogging our communal memory as we remember people and events in the history of our lives and of the church.

So, as we say Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers associated with our congregation today we remember that mothers everywhere are people with gifts and graces, as well as faults and foibles, and that as people loved by God mothers are to loved and valued and respected not simply this day but everyday of their lives.