St Mary's Church, Dymock
925th anniversary Year
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| Special Days - Mothering Sunday |
| 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 or 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, including: (Return to top) |
| January | Plough Sunday | February | Education Sunday | |
| March or April | Mothering Sunday | April | Rogation | |
| May | Christian Aid Week | June | Fathers Day Reader Sunday |
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| July | Sea Sunday | August | ||
| September | Racial Justice Sunday Harvest Festival |
October | Disability Sunday Animal Welfare Sunday Hospital Sunday |
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| November | All Saints Day, All Souls Day Remembrance Sunday |
December | Nine Lessons and Carols Christingle Service |
| Mothering Sunday | |
| The English name for today is‘Mothering Sunday’. ‘Mother’s Day’ is an American idea that happens in the USA on the same date every year in May but the English ‘Mothering Sunday’ goes back at least to the Middle Ages and happens on the third Sunday of Lent, just before Easter. (Return to top) | |
| 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. In those times 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 stilled lived nearby, you’d go and see them too, so children were reunited for one day with their mother, and the day popularly became known as ‘Mothering Sunday’. (Return to top) |  Daffodils |
| Especially the girls took cakes they’d made to show the skills they’d learnt in the kitchen and, as it was spring, both boys and girls picked flowers like daffodils or primroses from the hedgerows on their way home as a gift for their mother. The 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’ Cakes. 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. (Return to top) |  A Typical Simnel Cake |
| Today we seem to have adopted the American name 'Mother's Day'.... and buy the bunch of flowers we give our mother as a gift instead of collecting them, but it's still a Festival in the church when we remember 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. (Return to top) |
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