The
Fourth Sunday of Lent is known in the UK as Mothering Sunday. Originally it was
a day when people went to their mother church (perhaps where they were baptised
or married) and servants were given the day off to go back home to be able to
worship with their families. Over the years this has turned into a highly
commercialised celebration of mothers and motherhood. It is good to have a day
to celebrate and give thanks for our mothers, but it is not always an easy day
for those bearing the pain of childlessness, the loss of a child or mother, or
broken relationships.
In
Exodus chapter 2 we see some of the pain that Jochebed, Moses’s mother,
suffered. Pharaoh had ordered that all Hebrew boys should be drowned in the
river Nile at birth. The arrival of a beautiful healthy baby boy caused her
fear rather than joy. After hiding him for 3 months she had to let him go,
trusting that God would look after him. Thanks to Pharaoh’s daughter she got
him back again to look after, but in due course had to give him up again to be
part of another family. Some refugees and migrant workers today go through
agonies of separation from their children.
Today as
we give thanks for our mothers, let us pray for women who are dealing with
loss, fear, separation and pain, entrusting them to ‘the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort’ (2
Corinthians 1.3).
Aujourd’hui nous rendons grâce à Dieu pour nos mères,
et nous prions pour les femmes qui font face à la perte, la peur, la séparation
et la douleur, en leur confiant au Dieu, le Père de notre Seigneur Jésus
Christ, le Père des miséricordes et le Dieu de toute consolation (2 Corinthiens
1.3)
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