Is Mother’s Day a Christian holiday? Here’s how the celebration of mom started in church

Mother’s Day is all about celebrating the maternal figures in one’s life, but how did the holiday start?

Family members still have a few days to gather gifts and flowers before the holiday on Sunday. If going out to eat sounds more appetizing, Fort Worth has a plethora of options for dining.

While many celebrate Mother’s Day, the holiday’s origins might be fuzzy for some. Here’s what we know about how the holiday started and its Christian origins:

How Mother’s Day came to be

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day, but the holiday’s roots go way back.

Years before the Civil War, Ann Reeves Jarvis helped start the “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” to teach local West Virginian women how to care for children, according to the History Channel. During the Civil War in the early 1860s, the club became a unifying force for many during a divided time.

With the war in the nation’s rear view in 1868, Jarvis organized “Mother’s Friendship Day” where mom’s of both Union and Confederate soldiers gathered to promote reconciliation.

Following Ann Reeves Jarvis’ death in 1905, her daughter — Anna Jarvis — championed the efforts to establish a day celebrating mothers, according to the History Channel. With money from a Philadelphia store owner, Jarvis organized the first Mother’s Day celebration in Grafton, West Virginia in May 1908.

With the first celebration under her belt, Jarvis continued to push for the holiday to be celebrated nationwide. She started a letter writing campaign to newspapers and politicians. By 1912, many states and towns started celebrating the holiday, culminating in President Wilson signing the holiday into law two years later.

While both mother and daughter were instrumental in the creation of the holiday, other supporters included abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe, temperance activist Juliet Calhoun Blakely, Mary Towles Sasseen and Frank Hering.

Is Mother’s Day a Christian holiday?

The short answer is yes, after all, Anna Jarvis hosted the first Mother’s Day celebration in a Methodist church.

Before Jarvis helped establish the holiday, a day celebrating mothers can be traced back to ancient Greek and Romans who celebrated the mother goddesses — Rhea and Cybele. However, the biggest precedent for the maternal holiday can be traced back to “Mothering Sunday.”

Primarily celebrated in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday of Lent, according to the BBC. While similar to Mother’s Day in that it celebrates maternal figures, the European holiday has its own unique origins.

On Sundays, English churchgoers worship at the nearest parish to them. It was considered important for many that people return to their home or “mother” church once a year.

Thus, the return to church for many was a homecoming of sorts. It was a time for families to get together, reuniting with children for worship. Mothering Sunday was also a way for domestic servants or workers to get the day off to visit their mothers, according to the BBC.

Today, Mothering Sunday is still celebrated on the fourth Sunday of lent, around late March every year, with families reuniting to celebrate their moms.

Is Mother’s Day one of the busiest day for restaurants?

Yes, families love taking their mom out for brunch, lunch and dinner.

Besides Valentines Day and Father’s Day, Mother’s Day ranks as the busiest day for restaurants. In a new poll from the National Restaurant Association, 86% of people say they plan to go to restaurants on Sunday:

• 40% of adults plan to use a restaurant as part of a special Mother’s Day meal.

• 30% of adults plan to go out to a restaurant.

• 13% of adults plan to order food in.

• 3% of adults plan to both dine out and order in for two different meal occasions.

Make reservations now and beat the Sunday rush.