Sermon preached on Mothering Sunday – 27th March 2022: John 19, 25-27

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

In the liturgical calendar of the Church of England the 4^th Sunday of Lent is always Mothering Sunday. This festival is unique to our church, and in parishes of our tradition flowers will be blessed and distributed, and in some congregations simnel cakes will be baked, shared and eaten. These are time-honoured traditions.

 

On this day the image of ‘mothers’ can be applied at several levels, so it is, in so many ways, inclusive of all sorts of human conditions and responses. We are directed towards thanksgiving for our mothers, or even, mothers, mothers; we can apply the image to our ‘holy Mother the church’ in her nurturing and caring of everyone; today can be reflective – for those for whom thinking of their mother is a bad memory, or those who never had a mother and therefore nothing to remember except that void in their lives; and it is a day when we can reflect on Blessed Mary, Mother of Our Lord.

 

The gospel reading for today is short and to the point.

‘Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.’ (John 19, 25-27)

At the time of the infancy of Jesus, his parents take him to the temple where they are greeted with joyful words from Simeon the Righteous, but he also says of Mary, ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ (Luke 2, 35)

 

Motherhood is both a powerful image, and experience. I have just returned from visiting my own mother in Scotland – the first time we have physically been together for two years after all the chaos and restrictions of the pandemic. It is all the more meaningful because it is also the first time we have been together since my dad died two years ago. It is good to be reminded how grateful I am for my mother, and so many others will feel the same on this day.

 

However, as foretold by Simeon the Righteous, there is sorrow in motherhood.

 

We have read or heard recently of a pregnant woman, about to be a mother with all the joy and expectation that the birth of her child would bring, whose maternity hospital was bombed by Russian forces in Mariupol. Images showed her on a stretcher following the air strike, in which at least three other people were killed. After the place where she was meant to give birth was attacked, she was taken to another hospital. Her baby was born by Caesarean section, but showed no signs of life. Medics said that as they were trying to save the mother’s life, she realised she was losing her baby and shouted, “Kill me now!” When it became clear to them that the child had not survived, they tried to resuscitate the mother, but realised after 30 minutes that it was hopeless.

 

This is also a powerful experience of motherhood, reaching deep into the human emotions of love and self sacrifice.

 

‘Standing at the foot of the cross was Mary…’ she is a sign of comfort, a sign of sorrow, a sign of love, and a sign of the tragedy endured by so many mothers. The example of the Ukrainian mother can be replicated hundreds of thousands of times across the globe, in every land, and in every generation.

 

So whatever the experience, whatever level this Mothering Sunday reaches out to and touches, let this day in the centre of the holy season of Lent, whether joyful or sad, be a day to ponder, just as Blessed Mary pondered the things of her son in her own heart.