This Sunday, May 11th is Mother’s Day and the Jackson Parish Journal joins all in wishing all Mothers a very happy day.  

What Is Mother’s Day?

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday.”

Once a major tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, this celebration fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church”—the main church in the vicinity of their home—for a special service.

Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition shifted into a more secular holiday, and children would present their mothers with flowers and other tokens of appreciation. This custom eventually faded in popularity before merging with the American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.

Mother’s Day began with Anna Jarvis in 1908, with the first official celebration held on May 10th in West Virginia and Philadelphia. It became a national holiday in the United States in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation establishing it.

Did you know?

More phone calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year. These holiday chats with Mom often cause phone traffic to spike by as much as 37 percent.