Fourth Sunday in Lent – Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday is a holiday in the Catholic and Protestant Christian calendar celebrated in the UK, Ireland and other parts of the world, especially Canada and Australia. It is a religious holiday and is connected to the Easter calendar and therefore it moves date every year. 

Mothering Sunday is always on the fourth Sunday in Lent and therefore exactly 3 weeks before Easter Day. Easter changes its date every year in connection with the cycle of the Moon. Unlike other Christian holidays, Easter moves its date every year.  In 325 AD, it was established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. But if the full moon falls on a Sunday, Easter is then delayed by a week making sure it still falls after Passover. This means Easter can fall anywhere within a 35-day window between March 22 and April 25. And so as Easter moves so does Mothering Sunday.

Isn’t Mother’s Day really called Mothering Sunday?

Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t originally connected to your Mother. The term comes from workers being given the day off to go and worship in their ‘Mother church’ on Laetare Sunday. A person’s Mother Church was usually their family parish, or where they were baptised. Anyone attending the service was deemed to have done ‘a mothering’.  You would therefore often attend church with your family, including your Mother. Children would often pick flowers on their way to church due to the time of the year, spring flowers after the long harsh winters and give them to their mothers, hence why flowers are such a traditional gift on Mother’s Day.

Taken from wentworthpuzzles.com/blog