Mother’s Day – A Holy Day

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By: Dn. George Shumaik of St. John of Damascus in Poway, CA | May 8th, 2021

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It is common belief that greeting card vendors and florists invented the American holiday, Mother’s Day, purely as an opportunity for commercial gain. The National Retail Foundation estimates that Mother’s Day is a $16 billion industry. Florists, restaurants, phone companies and the US Postal Service all report a surge in activity around the second Sunday of May. According to Hallmark, 96% of consumers shop on Mother’s day making it the second highest gift-giving day of the year just behind Christmas. These data would seem to support the notion of a for-profit enterprise but the real history is actually more fascinating

Julia Ward Howe, most notable as the author of the lyrics of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, was the first to propose Mother’s Day in 1870 essentially as a war protest. She had become increasingly distraught over the horrific effects of the Civil War and called on Mothers to unite in protest over the futility of their sons killing the sons of other Mothers. Her effort gained some momentum among woman’s groups in larger US cities and was celebrated on June 2nd for several years but ultimately faded to obscurity as Mrs. Howe was unable to continue her financial support.

Several years later, Anna Reeves Jarvis from West Virginia reinvigorated the effort by leading a group of women in Mother’s Friendship Day whose mission was to reunite families that had been torn apart by the Civil War. After her death, her daughter, Anna M. Jarvis took up the calling and in remembrance of her Mother, the first Mother’s Day celebration was held at St. Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia on May 10, 1908. At this celebration, Anna M. instituted the tradition of presenting carnations to the Mothers – red in honor of those living and white in honor of those deceased. Anna M. was relentless in promoting her holiday and after much effort, convinced the US Congress to make it a national holiday. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation making the second Sunday of May, Mother’s Day. Interestingly, one of the requirements of the legislation is that each year, the sitting President must re-proclaim the holiday.

A sad footnote to the Anna M. Jarvis story is that she died blind, poor and childless spending the last years of her life in a failed attempt to save her Mother’s memorial celebration from being overrun by commercial enterprise, primarily the floral industry who ironically funded her care until she died in 1948. Today, Mother’s Day or some version of it is celebrated in more than 70 countries. There is broad range of emphasis depending on culture with most embracing the American secular humanistic roots and less so a spiritual or religious context. Mother’s Day has also been a fulcrum of political debate related to woman’s rights, the feminist movement and in recent years a return once again to war protest.

If you search the rubrics of the Orthodox Church in America, you will not find a feast or holy day called Mother’s Day. Yet, it would be unusual not to find Mother’s Day listed on the May calendar in every Orthodox parish across the land linked to some type of festivity – a luncheon, a picnic, a dinner. In essence, the Church has seized this secular holiday and made it Her own without ceremony or proclamation and perhaps in ignorance of its historical roots. Thanksgiving, praise and remembrance are the hallmarks of Orthodox worship. When we gather as Church, the Body of Christ, “in this world but not of this world”, we can take anything that is good, wholesome and true, offer it to God and make it Holy. What can be more good, wholesome and true than honoring motherhood? Therefore, in place of a “guilt offering” at the altar of capitalism for words unspoken or love unexpressed, let us instead offer in person and before God our thanksgiving, praise and remembrance for all Mothers who have and are now sacrificing to bring life, health, security and love to their offspring. In the words of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann “To love is to remember. And to remember with love is truly to understand that which one loves and remembers, to appropriate it as God’s gift.” Amen.