Letter from the Pastor
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May 12, 2024Happy Mother’s Day!! Today means that some 113 million cards were sent to thank Moms who gave us life and love. Mother's Day has been celebrated as a national holiday in the United States on the second Sunday of May since 1914. But like most holidays, it started out as a religious observance.
Catholics have been celebrating a sort of mother's day since the first few centuries of the Church. The fourth Sunday of Lent, or Laetare Sunday, traditionally was a time to return to your mother church (your home parish) and leave an offering, the “mother church” referred to the parish in which one was baptized.
Those who practiced this custom were said to have gone “a-mothering,” and soon it became known as “Mothering Sunday.” As the popularity of “Mothering Sunday” grew, it became a day when domestic servants were given the day off to be with their families. The day became one of the few times a year where a grown family could gather, as working families often had conflicting schedules.
Once the tradition became a day for family reunion, with a reference to mothers in the name, it naturally evolved to include all mothers within the celebration. For children, the long walk back home became a time for picking flowers for Mom, and this would grow to the tradition of giving gifts of all sorts to mothers.
Anna Jarvis began the American version of Mothers’ Day. After her mother’s death in 1905, she began the work of spreading the idea of a national day of remembrance for mothers. It was brought to Congress in 1908, but it was rejected, with representatives joking that they would also have to proclaim a “Mother-in-law’s Day.”
Anna did not lose sight of her goal, and after several years of campaigning and sending carnations, her mother’s favorite flowers, to lawmakers to raise awareness of the important holiday, every state observed Mother’s Day by 1911. On May 8, 1914, President Wilson signed a Joint Resolution that formally designated the second Sunday of May as Mother’s Day.
Anna Jarvis thought that gifts to mothers should be made by hand in order to properly express the love and gratitude of their children. However, over the few years the holiday became very commercialized. Anna spent the latter part of her life attempting to remove the holiday from the calendar, but was unsuccessful.
So on this most special day, we reflect on the vocation of motherhood and we thank God for our mothers. Motherhood is a true gift, a sacred mission entrusted to certain women. God’s beloved children placed in the arms of a mother’s care, protection and love.
Truly how great a calling, to be the first ones to know your children 9 months before anyone else, to introduce your children to God; to show them our Lord’s endless love and mercy. To be able to shape their hearts and minds, to help them to become faith-filled, responsible adults and when their mission is fulfilled to place them back in the hands of the God who created them.
In every period of motherhood, from infants to toddlers, through adolescence to adulthood, in the silence and the noise, the peacefulness and the bedlam, in the sorrow and joy, may you, Moms, never forget the glory of your calling.
As St. Mother Teresa reminds all of us: Motherhood is the gift of God to women. How grateful we must be to God for this wonderful gift that brings such joy to the whole world.
“Happy Mother’s Day”
Congratulations
Our parish congratulates our School Principal, Mrs. Patricia Maldonado, on her award from the Archdiocese of New York. Mrs. Maldonado received the award for her 25 years of Apostolic Service and Exemplary Leadership to Catholic Schools. We are really blessed to have Mrs., Maldonado as our Principal. She loves her students and staff; Mrs. Maldonado is a true Christian educator. Our school is thriving and a wonderful place to visit. We need our Catholic schools, and we are blessed to have one of the best schools in the entire Archdiocese of New York.
