15/03/2026
MOTHERING SUNDAY
A reflection by Mary Adeboyo, Reader/Licensed Lay Minister
Mothering Sunday arrives quietly in Lent,
not with trumpets or restaurant bookings,
but somewhere between confession and the kettle boiling.
It is one of those church days
that carries many stories at once.
Some come remembering mothers
whose hands shaped their childhood,
whose voices still echo in small sentences
that appear unexpectedly in our own mouths.
Some come carrying photographs instead of people.
Some come with gratitude.
Some with complicated memories.
Some with an ache they rarely speak aloud.
Some would have liked to be mothers
and the world did not unfold that way.
Some have buried children.
And some — though they might not say it —
have quietly mothered far more lives
than they ever expected.
Church, in its gentle wisdom,
never meant this day to belong only to one story.
Long ago, people simply walked home
to the church that had first held them,
the place where they were baptised,
the place where someone first whispered their name before God.
They called it *Mother Church*.
Not because it was perfect.
No family ever is.
But because it was the place
where people were gathered,
sheltered,
sometimes corrected,
often forgiven,
and always — somehow — held.
Which perhaps is the deeper meaning of mothering.
Not a title.
Not even a role.
But a way of being in the world.
The quiet work of noticing
when someone is weary.
The instinct to make space
when someone is lost.
The habit of gathering people close
when the world grows cold.
Jesus once spoke of longing
to gather people as a hen gathers her chicks.
It is a curious image.
A little awkward.
Possibly even faintly undignified.
Which is exactly the point.
Love, when it is real,
is rarely elegant.
It is busy, and patient, and practical.
It makes tea.
It listens longer than it planned to.
It keeps the light on.
And so on this Mothering Sunday
we give thanks for the mothers we have known —
and for the many ways
the work of mothering continues quietly among us.
In kitchens and classrooms.
In friendships and families.
In parishes and communities.
In all those ordinary acts of care
that hold the world together
more than we ever quite notice.
And perhaps today
we remember this as well:
that whenever we shelter one another,
whenever we nurture hope,
whenever we make space for someone to belong —
we are participating
in the gentle, patient mothering
of God.
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St Faithful’s is fictional. The affection is real.
Books by Canon Tom Kennar (including 3 volumes of 'The Parish Life' and our first novel) are available in print and e-book. St Faithful's merchandise is also available online. See https://tinyurl.com/4k9jtpbe for more about both.
AI may assist with these posts. The drafting and publishing responsibility is entirely human.
