Dear Friends,

A Blessed Mother's Day to all our mothers!

Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948) first suggested the national observance of an annual day honoring all mothers. At a memorial service for her mother on May 10, 1908, Miss Jarvis gave a carnation (her mother’s favorite flower), to each person who attended. Within the next few years, the idea of a day to honor mothers gained popularity.

On May 9, 1914, by an act of Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. He established the day as a time for “public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” By then it had become customary to wear white carnations to honor departed mothers and red to honor the living, a custom that continues to this day.

Mothering love is self-forgetful and sacrificial. In this way, it is the natural love that most mirrors the love of God we have come to know in Christ Jesus. A love that is totally for the other.

Mother's Day is a day to admit gratefully the fact that none of us is able to return, in the same measure, our mothers' love. It is fitting, then, that we offer our Eucharistic celebrations on Mother’s Day for all our mothers, living and deceased. In this way we can thank God for the gift of their mothering love, and draw inspiration from their modeling of Jesus' command to "Love one another as I have loved you."

Christ's Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ