Mother's Day 2024 - Sunday, May 12

 

A mother s love is always unconditional and pure. From the day she first feels you inside her womb to the she is alive, she only gives and never complains, and so is her love. Can you even imagine a life without a mother, it seems impossible. She protects you, loves you, cares for you, and teaches you everything so that when you go out there, you feel prepared and confident enough to take on the world.

So, to honor the love of all the mothers, the second Sunday of May is celebrated every year as Mother s Day.

 

Mother s Day is a time of commemoration and celebration for Mom. It is a time of breakfast in bed, family gatherings, and crayon scribbled "I Love You".

 

The first celebrations in honor of mothers were held in the spring in ancient Greece. They paid tribute to Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. During the 17th century, England honored mothers on "Mothering Sunday," celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent.

 

In the United States, Julia Ward Howe suggested the idea of Mother s Day in 1872. Howe, who wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, saw Mother s Day as being dedicated to peace.

 

Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia is credited with bringing about the official observance of Mother's Day. Her campaign to establish such a holiday began as a remembrance of her mother, who died in 1905 and who had, in the late 19th century, tried to establish "Mother's Friendship Days" as a way to heal the scars of the Civil War.

Two years after her mother died, Jarvis held a ceremony in Grafton, W. Va., to honor her. She was so moved by the proceedings that she began a massive campaign to adopt a formal holiday honoring mothers. In 1910, West Virginia became the first state to recognize Mother's Day. A year later, nearly every state officially marked the day. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed Mother's Day as a national holiday to be held on the second Sunday of May.

 

But Jarvis accomplishment soon turned bitter for her. Enraged by the commercialization of the holiday, she filed a lawsuit to stop a 1923 Mother's Day festival and was even arrested for disturbing the peace at a war mothers convention where women sold white carnations -- Jarvis symbol for mothers -- to raise money. "This is not what I intended," Jarvis said. "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit!"

 

When she died in 1948, at age 84, Jarvis had become a woman of great ironies. Never a mother herself, her maternal fortune dissipated by her efforts to stop the commercialization of the holiday she had founded, Jarvis told a reporter shortly before her death that she was sorry she had ever started Mother's Day. She spoke these words in a nursing home where every Mother's Day her room had been filled with cards from all over the world.

 

Today, because and despite Jarvis efforts, many celebrations of Mother's Day are held throughout the world. Although they do not all fall at the same time, such countries as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium also celebrate Mother's Day on the same day as the United States.

The second Sunday in May is observed as Mother's Day in most countries of the world. But it was not always so. Not very long ago, a festival called Mothering Sunday or Mid-Lent Sunday was celebrated in England on the fourth Sunday of Lent. The celebrations were surprisingly similar to the modern way of celebrating Mother's Day.

 

The First Mother's Day, as we know it nowadays, was observed on May 10, 1908, in a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The celebrations involved a church service in honor of Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis, mother of Anna Jarvis.

Four years later, the Mother's Day International Association was created, on December 12, 1912, to spread the concept and practice of observing Mother's Day. The very next year, in May 1913, the House of Representatives of the US government adopted a resolution requesting the President, his Cabinet, members of Congress, and all officials of the federal government to wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. 

 

Finally, on May 8, 1914, the Congress passed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

 

When the first Mother's Day was observed at the request of Anna Jarvis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1908, carnations were supplied at the church service. This was because carnations were her mother's favorite flowers. Thereafter, carnations have come to be associated with Mother's Day. White carnations are supposed to represent purity and love. Now it has become a tradition to regard red carnations as a symbol of a living mother; white carnations on the other hand are offered if one's mother has died.

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