Tracing The Roots Of The Celebration Of Motherly Love
When
the second Sunday of May approaches, we all get this feeling of anticipation
and excitement. Of course, we would; it’s the Mother’s Day, after all.
Cherishing our mothers is an activity we very casually forget every other day
of the year. On this one day we try to take time to catalogue our mother’s
likes and dislikes, try to remember if there was anything she had expressed to
want in particular, but not yet got. Then we pick all of that and go see her;
there she would be standing with warm smiles and our favorite goodies. Mothers
always know us best.
Ancient Traces before Christ
The
Romans and Greeks dedicated days to their goddesses who were known to bestow
fertility and prosperity. Cybele was a goddess who was a mountain mother
goddess, depicted as a pregnant woman sitting on a lion throne, and was
worshipped by the Romans as the “Great Mother,” and had many festivals such as
Megalesia in April, the Holy Week in March and other minor festivals. Greeks
already worshipped Rhea as the Mother Deity, as she was a mother to many
deities, and had days set aside for celebration in her name, as well.
Christian Celebrations
The
Early Christians introduced their own religious holiday to commemorate the
Virgin Mary. On this day, they held special prayers and the children were
encouraged to offer gifts of flowers and sweets to their mothers. The date
chosen for this was the fourth Sunday of Lent, before Easter. In England, they included
all the mothers and named it the Mothering Sunday. Beyond the usual gifting by
the children, servants and staff were allowed to visit their mothers. This was
a day incorporated so that mothers would be thanked for their efforts, but it
lost its significance around the 19th century. The practice was
resurrected after the World War II.
Modern beginnings
The
modern Mother’s Day celebrations can find their roots emerging from the strong
feministic revolutionaries. The idea was suggested by the eminent poet Julia
Ward Howe, who is most remembered for her poem “the Battle Hymn of the
Republic” and her Mother’s Day proclamation. She suggested that there should be
a day when the mothers irrelevant of ages, status and nationalities be joined
together to fight the ravages of war and teach their children to promote peace.
Though her ideas never came into fruition, her vision was firmly entrenched in
the fertile minds of the next generation of women revolutionaries.
Modern Day Celebrations
The
Mother of Mother’s Day was Anna Jarvis, who decided that it was a worthwhile
cause to fulfill her mother’s wish to found a day to honor the efforts of all
the mothers across the world for all their sacrifices and love. She organized
the first Mother’s Day in 1908 when she distributed 100 white carnations, her
mother’s favorite flowers, to the congregation at the Methodist Church she was
part of. Then as just fruits of her endeavors, President Wilson declared the
second Sunday of May every year to be the Mother’s Day for all.
