Mother’s Day Mass and Breakfast

Mother’s Day has been celebrated in Australia on the second Sunday of May since 1924 but, 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 (home parish) and leave an offering.

Those who practised 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 leave 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 mum, and this would grow to the tradition of giving gifts of all sorts to mothers.

In Catholic tradition, the month of May is dedicated to Mary. Chosen by God above all other women, Mary’s faith and obedience paved the way for the Incarnation. Her example teaches us faith, obedience, humility and most of all, how to love. As St Thomas of Villanova said, “If in this world any creature ever loved God with whole heart, with whole soul and with whole mind, she was the creature.”

Last Friday we celebrated our Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts and special women who care for the girls in our College community with a Mass and refreshments. Fr Emmanuel from OLF parish led us in Mass and we are so grateful for his willingness to assist us in blessing our mothers and special women. We were lucky to have Ms Olsen and students of our music department to lead us in hymns.

Mrs Fadel and Mrs Sly, mother’s of our College Co-Captains, gave a beautiful reflection at the Mass. Please click here to read their Mother’s Day reflection.

I hope all our mums and mother figures were celebrated last Sunday and know how much they are loved and appreciated. Mums suffer the greatest heartaches, the greatest of joys and everything imaginable in between. This Mother’s Day, let’s give each other grace. Mums nowadays are inundated with information, opinions, social media, choices and advice, and we’re thrown into doing so much with very little help sometimes. Let’s say a little prayer for each other for strength, courage, and patience. 

Mary, Jesus’ mother and the greatest of all models to look up to when getting through our day-to-day life, is someone we can turn to and ask for intercession. Our Blessed Mother, even in her perfection, still somehow experienced similar feelings to those that we feel as mothers. I’d like to think that because Mary and so many other women were great mothers, we can be too.

Julie Monk
Religious Education Coordinator