Mother's Day Mass - Scattered Thoughts

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The priest simply gave a general blessing to all mothers at the end of Mass. No one was asked to stand or come up. I think that was the perfect balance.
 
I wanted children but could not have them. Mother’s Day used to be painful for me, but I have come to accept that it was not my destiny to be a mother by God’s will, not mine. I do feel very self-conscious when nearly every female in church is standing up to be recognized and I am sitting down. But the hardest part for me is seeing the pain on my husband’s face when I am nearly the only woman still seated because he knows how much I wanted children. I think it would be much more compassionate to ask all women to stand first, then give the blessing. Afterall, I may not be a biological mother, but I AM a second mother to my godchildren and to my furkids.
 
blackforest said:
I know of one woman who won’t go because many years ago, when she was a teenager, she gave a baby up for adoption. It’s too painful for her to see all of the mothers come to the front for a blessing. I’ve wondered about that when I go to the front for a blessing and see the women who remain seated. How many have faced infertility? Multiple miscarriages? Elective abortions? How many have outlived their children?
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My parish roses placed at the Mary statue.

Father also simply asks all mothers - biological and adoptive, grandmothers, Godmothers, step-mothers, foster mothers, etc to simply stand for the blessing. They don’t walk up.

I think it works out.
 
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Mother’s Day is not on the liturgical calendar, but culture, retail, and, yes, Hallmark, have made everyone feel like it is. We should obey the commandment to honor our parents always, not just on one day. Mothers and grandmothers at my church were asked to stand for a prayer of thanksgiving and a blessing after Mass yesterday. I was fine with it, but I would also have been fine without it. I enjoyed being reminded of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, during Mass.
 
Blockquote That just sucks for the kids.
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But thank goodness they have you, and you are doing everything right, attending church with them and showing them the right way to live. You’re a mom to celebrate!
 
twf said:
The priest simply gave a general blessing to all mothers at the end of Mass. No one was asked to stand or come up. I think that was the perfect balance.
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That’s what our parish does. And the youth group hands out carnations after Mass. But they offer them to every woman, no one is singled out either way.
 
My parish commemorated living and deceased mothers. I almost want to ask for a dispensation from Liturgy on Mother’s Day because it’s still hard for me after losing my mother, and I had the overwhelming urge to run out on Saturday evening. Our pastor always handles things very well, and he said nothing that could be taken as offensive or hurtful; it’s just my own state of mind about not having my mom.
 
This is how I felt also. I lost my mother not too long ago and some of the things said were very difficult to hear.
 
We crowned Mary, had a sermon about Mary as Mother of God, and had a blessing for mother’s at the end of mass.

I appreciated the focus on Mama Mary and the blessing. It was tastefully done.
 
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gracepoole said:
It’s a secular holiday so I don’t believe it should be mentioned in Mass at all.
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I guess that most people commenting are American. In the UK we have Mothering Sunday on the fourth Sunday of Lent. It is a religious observance, although it is now largely secular.

There are various explanations as to the significance of this Sunday. One is that it is derived from the reading from Galatians 4, ending, ‘But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.’

Another is that it was a day on which everybody in the diocese would make a pilgrimage to the cathedral—the mother church of the diocese. This seems doubtful: until 1848 England comprised only 22 Anglican dioceses, some of which were extremely large. Until 1877, for example, the Diocese of Winchester covered an area of approx. 2,400 sq. miles. To travel from Shakespeare’s Globe or Chaucer’s Tabard in Southwark to the cathedral in Winchester would have taken two or three days in each direction on foot or by horse. It’s also doubtful whether Winchester, today a city of around 124,000 people, could have supported the entire population of the diocese visiting on a single day. It could be true if we imagine that most people would undertake the pilgrimage once in a lifetime rather than annually as is often implied.

Another explanation is that it was the one Sunday of the year on which servants were allowed to travel home to visit their mothers. One problem I see with this is that they presumably did not travel home only to see their mothers, but also fathers, grandparents, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. Combined with this explanation is the idea that it was an occasion to visit one’s personal mother church, i.e. the church at which one had been baptised or one’s childhood parish church. It seems that people did indeed visit their mothers on Mothering Sunday and almost inevitably, in times when people did not move around very much, also visited their childhood parish church. Whether this explains the origin of the observance, however, is less certain.
gracepoole said:
This DOESN’T happen on Father’s Day
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Is that partly because Father’s Day isn’t such a big deal? I live in the UK, so my experience may be different. We do have Father’s Day, but it’s not a big deal. Whereas Mother’s Day is almost universally observed, Father’s Day is regarded as a commercial imitation of Mothering Sunday and is more of an optional occasion. Therefore if one is an infertile man or had an abusive father or whatever, it is easy just to ignore it. There’s no avoiding Mother’s Day, and it does cause problems in families where mothers and children have a bad relationship for whatever reason. I think the concerns over infertility or bereavement are less of a big thing here.

In many churches children are given a small bouquet of flowers to give to their mothers. I’m not aware of mothers being asked to stand up or being invited to receive a specific blessing. I think British people in general would find this a bit embarrassing, as we traditionally don’t like to be the focus of attention.
 
At my parish we have several vases of roses near the altar. Our priests mentions mothers in his homily and invited any woman who wants a rose to take one after Mass. works out well
 
RCbkw said:
Mother’s Day is not on the liturgical calendar, but culture, retail, and, yes, Hallmark, have made everyone feel like it is.
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Agreed. I will also say, I’m confused where the practice of blessings for mothers comes from. How can a secular holiday affect the celebration of the Mass? I can understand wishing everyone a happy mother’s day during announcements, but anything beyond that really has no place at Mass imho.
 
Our priest asked all mothers to stand and in his blessing blessed all who acted as mothers,all who had lost their mothers, all who had lost children and all who could not be mothers. A good effort I think.
 
I am sorry for your pain. I understand why you have misfocused my wider intent on to Mother’s Day. The point I was trying to make, and perhaps I did do poorly, is that no matter what people celebrate or do it is bound to have some negative impact on someone. That should not prevent people from celebrating any event. Others may be hurt about that but I do not think, as some people do, they should demand that such celebrations should not happen.

I can think of one ridiculous example, although it was not a celebration. I used to teach of first aid courses. One day I was teaching and this woman in the room became very distressed and left with two friends. I paused from teaching and went to investigate and see if there was anything I could do. The lady was upset because at that moment I had been teaching about heart attacks and what to do. It was only several months earlier that her father had died from a heart attack. I could therefore understand why she was upset and I had empathy for her. But, then it went into what I see as unnecessary overreaction. She thought I was cruel to have mentioned heart attacks and refused to complete the course. If she had completed the course and had learnt how to manage someone with a heart attack and how to do CPR there was a possibility (not a certainty of course) that she may have helped save someone else dying from a heart attack.

So, I have every empathy for people. However, there are few among us who will never have had at least one very painful moment in our lives. That does not mean we should stop others from celebrating events that may bring pain to us.

If Mothers’ Day is a very painful event perhaps there are alternatives to explore to reduce the pain on that day. Does this happen at every Mass that day? If not perhaps go to a Mass where it does not happen. If it does take place at all the Masses explain to your priest and ask for a dispensation from Mass on mothers’ Day.
 
How do you propose a compassionate approach? I do understand that there are women who are not mothers, who have had miscarriages, may have had their children removed by social services, could have been abused by their own mother, etc. It is just plain male-chauvinist insensitivity on my part. What I am saying is we should not stop having celebrations in our lives, including our public lives, because those events may be painful for some.

I do not say we lack compassion for others. I just feel there is too much of people nowadays saying they were hurt in some way and that others should not offend them by celebrating an event. Life is not easy and we have to learn to deal with the pain.

If I had been abused or abandoned by my mother I have no doubt that would be incredibly painful. I doubt not hearing ever again about other people’s wonderful mothers would dull the pain.
 
gracepoole said:
But I’ll add this: in recent years, the entire day has been marred for me by those who struggle with it. It’s no longer just a happy day to celebrate moms — now it’s a day to explain that someone is infertile, someone’s mom died recently, someone had an awful childhood with an abusive mom, etc. This DOESN’T happen on Father’s Day, which seems a bizarre contrast.
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I know from my perspective, a lot of this is because the rhetoric around fathers and fatherhood just isn’t the same as that around mothers and motherhood. People with abusive mothers often feel that they face a lot more pushback and disbelief than if they had an abusive father - as though it’s unbelievable that a woman could do those things. And there’s a lot more of a sense for women that motherhood is seen as the full expression of female identity in a way that fatherhood isn’t seen as for men, or that a woman who isn’t a mother somehow isn’t a complete woman.

The rhetoric around fathers and father’s day is just different. It has its own problems, but I think its problems tend more towards acting like basic parenting tasks are incredible when coming from men.
 
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