Piddington: St Nicholas, Piddington

To be held at Pam Pointer's house - 1, Manor Farm, Thame Road, Piddington.

Thursday 26th February 2009 at 8:00 PM for 1½ hours

Mothering Sunday [not Mother's Day which, though increasingly used, is a recent development and its history is quite different.] did not begin as a celebration of motherhood, but a synonym of Laetare Sunday in the Christian liturgical calendar. During the sixteenth century, people returned to their "mother church" for a service to be held on the fourth Sunday of Lent. This was either a large local church, or more often the nearest Cathedral. Anyone who did this was commonly said to have gone "a-mothering", although whether this preceded the term Mothering Sunday is unclear. In later times, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother and other family members and it was often the only time that whole families could gather together. Other names attributed to this festival include; Simnel Sunday, [named after the practice of baking Simnel cakes to celebrate the reuniting of families during the austerity of Lent], Refreshment Sunday, [so named because there is traditionally a lightening of Lenten vows on this particular Sunday in celebration of the fellowship of family and church and, Rose Sunday, [sometimes used as an alternative title for Mothering Sunday as well, as is witnessed by the purple robes of Lent being replaced in some churches by rose-coloured ones. This title refers to the tradition of posies of flowers being collected and distributed at the Service, originally to all the mothers, but latterly, to all women in the congregation. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, however, asserts that "the Golden Rose, sent by the Popes to Catholic sovereigns, used to be blessed at this time, and for this reason the day was sometimes called 'Dominica de Rosa'." This Sunday was also once known as "the Sunday of the Five Loaves". Prior to the adoption of the modern "common" lectionaries the traditional Gospel reading for this Sunday in the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Western-Rite Orthodox, and Old Catholic churches was the story of the feeding of the five thousand [The Anglican Book of Common Prayer stipulates St John's Gospel 6:5-14]. Other little known traditions associated with Mothering Sunday are; the practice of "clipping the church", whereby the congregation form a ring around their church building and, holding hands, embrace it and, for some Church of England churches, it is the only day in Lent when marriages can be celebrated. [Source, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Sunday 22nd March 2009 at 10:30 AM for 1 hour