Mothering Sunday....

...the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Laetare Sunday, "Let Up" Sunday. Take a break from Lenten fasting. Go home and celebrate with your mother. Thank God for Mother Church.

"Rejoice, Jerusalem..."

The traditional thing to make is a simnel cake - so called because it has a layer of marzipan baked into the middle of it. Its name comes from  the Latin similia  - the ancient Romans made cakes of this for their feast of Matronalia at this time of year. Marzipan is made of ground almonds - the grains are similar to one another. The Italian semolina - referring to small grains of pasta - has the same root. It's all about the idea of  small grains and seed as being the source of fruitfulness - like throwing rice at weddings...

The ancients saw maternity as being connected with fruitfulness but they didn't get the whole spiritual truth of motherhood. It took Mary and the whole idea of Mother Church to teach that - preceded by the great women of the Old Covenant who taught  it all too, and the Old Testament sings the praises of the good woman whose price is beyond rubies...

My mother is now well beyond her 90th year and we'll be spending a quiet but pleasant afternoon together. She'll have had flowers delivered and there'll be sherry and chocolates and cards and affection. We'll reminisce a bit and we'll talk about family things - there's a granddaughter's wedding coming up. Sometimes we finish by saying prayers together: the Our Father and the Hail Mary, the prayers she taught me and my brother and sister, so long ago that it is simply impossible to remember a time when the words weren't  absolutely part of our liiving and breathing...our introduction to the great spiritual things...

Laetare...