Our Modern celebration of Mother’s day has numerous links to many different eras and cultural groups of the past. There is evidence of Mother Goddess worship in the ancient world, dating back as far as 6,000 BC in Asia Minor. During their annual spring festival the Ancient Greeks dedicated their festivities to maternal goddesses. They used the occasion to honor Rhea, wife of Cronus and the mother of many other Greek deities. Early Christians celebrated a Mother's Day of sorts during the festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honor of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ. In England the holiday was expanded to include all mothers. It was then called Mothering Sunday. It's now a long standing tradition, part of the liturgical calendar in several Christian denominations, including Anglicans, and in the Catholic calendar it is marked as Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent.
However the link that is striking a cord with me this year is perhaps the connection with Julia Ward Howe, who is attributed with suggesting the official celebration of Mothers day in the US in 1872. An activist, writer and poet Julia Ward Howe suggested that June 2 be annually celebrated as Mothers Day and should be dedicated to peace. She wrote a passionate appeal to women and urged them to rise against war in her famous “Mother’s day Proclamation “(see below), written in Boston in 1870. She also initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June in Boston and held the meeting for a number of years. Julia tirelessly championed the cause of official celebration of Mothers Day and declaration of official holiday on the day. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May.
What we seem to have forgotten in the translation is that this was a plea for the celebration of Mothers, Motherhood and the role they can play in the acquisition of peace in the world!!
We live still in a constant state of war and killing, there are so many justifications, so many fears that spur us on in our madness….but as a mother, I hope to instill in my children a love of love, of peace and the integrity of being human, a gentleness that thinks before talking, a talking that forestalls anger, hate and deadly action, a heart that loves without judgment and gives in abundance, a wisdom that stems from an understanding and confidence of self and others and a vision that looks beyond fear and greed.
Following are the words still sadly relevant today of Julia Ward Howe.
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Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not betaken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balanceof justice.
Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summonsof war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for agreat and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women,to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
Julia Ward HoweBoston 1870
Have a wonderful day Mothers, you deserve it, and remember to give your children the gift of peace, by your actions in your home, in your world, in their hearts…..it sometimes a harder thing than you can imagine to do, but it is worth every ounce of effort and every good intention!
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