St Mary's Church, Dymock

The church exists first to offer worship (honour) to God and to thank him for the gifts he gives us, and secondly to honour and support each other, because we're all fellow creatures of God and so by honouring each other we honour him too.

As well as the Seasons and Major Festivals which help us worship God, the church celebrates several 'Special Days' throughout the year to remember, honour and support each other and our work in God's world. Celebration of the "Special Days" is usually optional, Christians chose which they want to remember, not all churches celebrate all these days....

The English name for this day is '˜Mothering Sunday', the alternative name '˜Mother's Day' is an American idea that started after the America Civil War and happens in the USA on the second Sunday of May, but the English version '˜Mothering Sunday' goes back at least to the Middle Ages and happens on the third Sunday of Lent, just before Easter.
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By the 17th and 18th centuries, it had become common for young serving maids and boy apprentices to be given a holiday to visit their 'Mother Church' - they had probably left home as young as 10 years old and that was often their only holiday all year and the church expected you to go back and visit your 'Mother Church' on that day - that is, the church where you were baptised. As your parents probably still lived near that church, you'd go and see them too, so children were reunited for one day with their mother, so the day popularly became known as 'Mothering Sunday'.
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Traditional Gift - An 'Apprentice Piece': Boys and girls would take gifts with them to show their mother what they'd learnt in their new job. Girls would often take a cake they'd made to show the skills they'd learnt in the kitchen, whilst boys might take something from the stables where they worked to show what they'd learnt too and, as it was spring, both boys and girls picked flowers like daffodils or primroses from the hedgerows on their way home as part of their gift.  The girl's special cakes were spicy and made from a flour with the Latin name simila (which is where we get the name 'Semolina' from). When the flour was used in the cakes they were known as 'Simnel' Cake. They usually have marzipan in the middle and a layer of marzipan on top with 11 marzipan balls for the twelve Apostles - less the one who betrayed Jesus (Judas Iscariot).
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As young girls and boys no longer go into domestic service away from home at such a young age, when this day is celebrated in church today, we in England seem to have adopted the American name 'Mother's Day'.... and buy a bunch of flowers to give our mother as a gift instead of making them, but we still celebrate the church itself and God, the mother and father of us all, as well as praying for and thanking our mothers for all they do for us.
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