Patrick Comerford
Today is the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV) and Mothering Sunday or Mothers’ Day. Later this morning, I am reading one of the lessons at the Mothering Sunday Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford.
This Sunday is also known as Laetare Sunday. Traditionally, this has been a day of celebration within Lent, and the name Laetare Sunday comes from the incipit of the Introit for the Mass, Laetare Jerusalem, ‘Rejoice, O Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 66: 10).
This Sunday is also known as Rose Sunday because rose-coloured rather than violet vestments are worn in many churches on this day.
The clocks went forward an hour during the night, and I may have to catch up on that lost hour of sleep later today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32 (NRSVA):
15 Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’
3 So he told them this parable:
11b … ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” 22 But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.
25 ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 31 Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found”.’
Today’s Reflection:
I grew up on a solid diet of English boys’ comics, graduating from the Beano and the Dandy in the 1950s to the Victor, the Valiant and the Hotspur in the early 1960s, and books and films set in places like Stalag Luft III, such as The Wooden Horse and The Great Escape.
There were limited storylines, and the characters never had any great depth to them.
In those decades immediately after World War II, Germans were caricatures rather characters, portrayed as Huns who had a limited vocabulary.
And I remember how they always referred to the Vaterland. Somehow, seeing your country as the Father-land made you harsh, unforgiving, demanding and violent. While those who saw their country as a mother, whether it was Britannia or Marianne, or perhaps even Hibernia, were supposed to be more caring, empathetic and ethical, endowed with justice and mercy.
These images somehow played on, pandered to, the images a previous generation had of the different roles of a father and a mother.
So, culturally it may come as a surprise, perhaps even a cultural challenge, to many this morning, that one of the other Gospel readings provided for Mothering Sunday this year is a Parable that tells us what it is to be a good father, the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Culturally we are predisposed to thinking of this parable as the story of the Prodigal Son. But this is not a story teaching us how to be wayward children. The emphasis is three-way: the wayward son, the unforgiving or begrudging son, and the loving Father.
The missing person in this story is the Mother of these two sons.
The people who first heard that parable – eager tax collectors and sinners, grumbling Pharisees and Scribes – may well have been mindful of the Biblical saying: ‘A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a mother’s grief’ (Proverbs 10:1).
Or inwardly they may have been critical of the father, recalling another saying in the Book of Proverbs: ‘Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray’ (Proverbs 22: 6).
We all know what bad parenting is like. I know myself. I know what it is to have two sets of parents, and four sets of grandparents, who came with different gifts and different deficiencies. But I am also aware of my own many failings as a parent too, and on this Mothering Sunday I hope that in time I am forgiven for the many times I have failed as a father.
In the story of the Prodigal Son, Christ rejects all the dysfunctional models of parenting we have inherited and received.
Those first listeners to this parable may well have had wayward sons and jealous sons, and the story, initially, would have been no surprise, would have been one they knew only too well.
But they no longer need to be challenged as adult children. The challenge they need is about their own parenting skills. And they may well have been distressed as they hear a story about a man who behaves not like a father would be expected to behave but like a mother.
Where was the mother of the Prodigal Son? Did she have a role in this family drama?
Had she been praying ever since her wayward son left home, asking God to keep him safe, to bring him home?
Perhaps it was her prayers that reached him in some way and reminded her son of home.
But the Father in the parable is also both Father and Mother to the Son.
He behaves just like a mother would in these circumstances.
He is constantly looking and waiting and watching for him until the day he sees him.
And when he sees him, instead of being the perfectly-behaved gentleman, he is filled up with emotions, he runs, he hugs, he kisses. He finds him clean clothes, he finds clean shoes, he feeds him. And like a good mother, he probably also tells him his room is made up, it has always been there for him.
The father of the Prodigal Son bucks all the images of parenting we have inherited: he is both mother and father to his children.
The sufferings and compassion of three images in recent years illustrate for me how loving parents can be reflections of divine majesty and grace.
I think of the pregnant mother, a qualified solicitor who had been homeless, told Valerie Cox on RTÉ radio some years ago how she was forced to walk the streets of Dublin because the hostel where she was staying would not allow her in until 7.30 in the evening.
Like the Prodigal Son, no one gave her anything and she had no proper bed at night. She was 6½ months pregnant, had an eight-year-old daughter, and Mother Ireland has betrayed her.
Or I think of mothers as refugees crossing the Channel nd seeing their children drown just before they reach the shores of England.
We see it as our problem rather than seeing it as a problem for the people fleeing war and savage violence.
Or I think of Nuala Creane, who spoke movingly at the funeral of her son Sebastian, who was murdered in Bray in 2009. In a well-sculpted eulogy, carved with all the beauty, precision, delicacy and impact of a Pieta being sculpted by a Michelangelo, she told all present that ‘my story, my God is the God of Small Things. I see God’s presence in the little details.’
She spoke of the heartbreak and the choice that faces everyone confronted with the deepest personal tragedies, admitting, ‘Our hearts are broken but maybe our hearts needed to be broken so that they could expand.’
Broken hearts, expanding hearts, souls that have been pierced, rising to the challenge with unconditional love … this is how I hope I understand the majesty and the glory of Christ, at the best of times and at the worst of times.
How as a society – whether it is our local community, this land, or in Europe – are we mothers to mothers in need?
How, as a Church, so often spoken of lovingly as ‘Mother Church,’ do we speak up for God’s children in their time of need and despair?
Dr Samuel Johnson’s ‘Last Letter to his Aged Mother,’ written on 20 January 1769, reads:
Dear Honoured Mother:
Neither your condition nor your character make it fit for me to say much. You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman, in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well. God grant you his Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen. Lord Jesus receive your spirit. Amen.
I suppose, on this Mothering Sunday, that Christ had good experiences of mothering as he was growing up. Just a few verses before the parable of the Prodigal Son, he uses a most maternal image as he laments over Jerusalem and declares: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings …’ (Luke 13: 34).
The Christ Child, when he was born, was cradled in the lap of a loving mother who at the time could never know that when he died and was taken down from the cross she would cradle him once again in her lap.
But the experience of a mother’s loss and grief that come to mind in Lent is given new hope at Easter.
On Mothering Sunday, we move through Lent towards Good Friday and Easter Day, How do we, like Christ, and like so many suffering mothers, grow to understand those who suffer, those who grieve, those who forgive?
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 30 March 2025, Lent IV, Mothering Sunday):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Inspiration of the Holy Spirit.’ This theme is introduced today with Reflections from the Revd Rock Higgins, Rector of Saint James the Less Episcopal Church, Ashland, Virginia, and the Triangle of Hope Youth Pilgrimage Lead for the Diocese of Virginia:
As we continue to journey through Lent we share an extract from USPG’s 2025 Lent Course focused on the Nicene Creed.
Our work with the Triangle of Hope is a ministry of reconciliation. One of the greatest gifts of my life has been the opportunity to work with sisters and brothers on three continents to overcome the nightmares of the transatlantic slave trade. This is something that none of us can do in isolation, but in and through the humility that comes from being transformed by the Holy Spirit working in and through as ‘new creations.’
This work comes with much sweat and tears, often stretching us in uncomfortable ways. But like all things worth having, we must work to make it a reality. In our pilgrimages in each of our dioceses, we see the evidence of the legacy of the work done in the past. We cannot wish it away, nor can we ignore it. As we follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can honestly ‘worship and glorify’ which we promise to do in the Creed.
This season, where can you be about a ‘ministry of reconciliation’? Where can you put in your sweat and tears to help fulfil God’s dream for our hurting and sin-ravaged world? While the Triangle of Hope stretches across continents, your ministry might be with a neighbour or a family member. Begin where you are and let the Holy Spirit guide you to wholeness and healing.
[For the full reflection and others from USPG’s partner churches around the world, you can order or download the course at www.uspg.org.uk].
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 30 March 2025, Lent IV, Mothering Sunday) invites us to pray:
Lord, we thank you for the gift of motherhood. Today, we celebrate the loving sacrifice of mothers, both biological and spiritual, who nurture and guide us in your ways. Bless all who mother with joy, strength, and love. May they feel deeply appreciated and honoured today and every day.
The Collect:
Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Lord God,
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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