The Filipino  Chaplaincy of the  diocese  of  Parramatta,  dedicated  this  month  of  May  to  all  the  mothers. We  are  inviting  everyone  to  post  their  comments/dedications in  email  or  video format  to  this  website. The  following information on  Mother’s  Day was  taken  from : http://www.dayformothers.com/mothers-day-history/.

Mother’s Day History

The history of Mother’s Day is centuries old and goes back to the times of ancient Greeks, who held festivities to honor Rhea, the mother of the gods. The early Christians celebrated the Mother’s festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent to honor Mary, the mother of Christ. Interestingly, later on a religious order stretched the holiday to include all mothers, and named it as the Mothering Sunday. The English colonists settled in America discontinued the tradition of Mothering Sunday because of lack of time. In 1872 Julia Ward Howe organized a day for mothers dedicated to peace. It is a landmark in the history of Mother’s Day.
In 1907, Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948), a Philadelphia schoolteacher, began a movement to set up a national Mother’s Day in honor of her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis. She solicited the help of hundreds of legislators and prominent businessmen to create a special day to honor mothers. The first Mother’s Day observance was a church service honoring Anna’s mother. Anna handed out her mother’s favorite flowers, the white incarnations, on the occasion as they represent sweetness, purity, and patience. Anna’s hard work finally paid off in the year 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as a national holiday in honor of mothers.
Slowly and gradually the Mother’s day became very popular and gift giving activity increased. All this commercialization of the Mother’s day infuriated Anna as she believed that the day’s sentiment was being sacrificed at the expense of greed and profit.
Regardless of Jarvis’s worries, Mother’s Day has flourished in the United States. Actually, the second Sunday of May has become the most popular day of the year. Although Anna may not be with us but the Mother’s day lives on and has spread to various countries of the world. Many countries throughout the world celebrate Mother’s Day at various times during the year, but some such as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium also celebrate Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May.

Mother’s Day and What it Really Means

To understand Mother’s Day and what it really means, you need to understand the person in your life called ‘Mother’. Mother is one who nurtures you in her womb for nine months and brings you forth to enjoy the supreme blessing on earth, that is, Life. Mother is one who guides you through your infancy and turns the soft, helpless creature to the powerful and successful YOU. She is the guardian angel protecting you and supporting you, feeling for you and serving you silently always with a smile on her face. She prides herself watching you grow and provides you a shoulder to cry on whenever you need. She is every child’s best friend.
For a child, every single day should be a Mother’s Day. The essence of the meaning of Mother’s Day is in the fact that we should try and make this day every year a memorable one for your mother. She should cherish the special feeling of this day and the intensity of that feeling should last her the lifetime.
This is the day to stop, remember, and pray for that special person in our life, without whom we would not have been, what we are today; a day to prove that all her efforts, towards making us a complete person, have been worthwhile and make her feel proud for us. In the broader sense of the term, Mother’s Day is a day to be grateful to God for being so kind as to bless us with an angel in the form of Mother.