March 14th
What is Mothering Sunday?
Mothering Sunday in the UK is the equivalent of Mothers' Day in other countries.
What happens on Mothering Sunday in the UK?
Mothering Sunday is a time when children pay respect to their Mothers, and often give their Mothers a gift and a card.
Mothering Sunday church service
Many churches give the children in the congregation a little bunch of spring flowers to give to their Mothers as a thank you for all their care and love throughout the year.
When is Mothering Sunday (Mother's Day)?
Mothering Sunday (Mother's Day) is always the fourth Sunday of Lent.
Why is Mothering Sunday on different dates each year?
Mothering Sunday is not a fixed day because it is always the middle Sunday in Lent (which lasts from Ash Wednesday to the day before Easter Sunday). This means that Mother's Day in the UK will fall on different dates each year and sometimes even fall in different months.
Mothering Sunday has been celebrated in the UK on the fourth Sunday in Lent since at least the 16th century.
Some History behind Mothering Sunday
Mothering Sunday was also known as 'Mid-Lent Sunday' or 'Refreshment Sunday' . It was often called Refreshment Sunday because the fasting rules for Lent were relaxed, in honour of the 'Feeding of the Five Thousand', a story in the Christian Bible.
It is not absolutely certain exactly how the idea of Mothering Sunday began. It is known however, that on this day, about four hundred years ago, people made a point of visiting their nearest big church (the Mother Church). People who visited their mother church would say they had gone "a mothering."
Young girls and boys 'in service' (maids and servants) were only allowed one day to visit their family each year. This was usually Mothering Sunday. Often the housekeeper or cook would allow the maids to bake a cake to take home for their mother. Sometimes a gift of eggs; or flowers from the garden (or hothouse) was allowed. Flowers were traditional, as the young girls and boys would have to walk home to their village, and could gather them on their way home through the meadows.
Did you know?
Mothering Sunday is also sometimes know as Simnel Sunday
because of the tradition of baking Simnel cakes.
Simnel Cake
The most favoured cake was - as it still is in some families - the 'Simnel cake'. People began honouring both their mothers and the church.
‘I’ll to thee a Simnel bring
‘Gainst thou go’st a mothering,
So that, when she blesseth thee,
Half that blessing thou’lt give to me.’
Robert Herrick 1648
The Simnel cake is a fruit cake. A flat layer of marzipan (sugar almond paste) is placed on top of and decorated with 11 marzipan balls representing the 12 apostles minus Judas, who betrayed Christ.
The most charming story of its origins is that a couple named Simon and Nelly made a cake to celebrate the end of Lent, but argued about whether it should be boiled or baked. As a compromise they decided to do both, and the result became known as the cake of Simon and Nelly, later shortened to Sim-Nel. However it is much more likely that the name comes from the Latin word for the fine wheat flour that was used: Simila..
A Simnel is still made in many parts of England today, although it is now more commonly made for and eaten on Easter Day
