From Pastor’s Desk
Can you guess what day this is? The phone lines are busiest on this day of the year. Many cards and flowers are sent to our loved ones. Lots of them. And this very special day is in May. Yes, it’s the Mother’s Day!
For more than 90 years since the first Mother’s Day celebration on May 10, 1908, in the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia, we have recognized the special place mothers occupy in our lives. In 1914 The U.S. House and Senate approved a resolution proclaiming the second Sunday of May as Mother’s Day. President Woodrow Wilson endorsed it, and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan proclaimed it.
So we honor our moms on this special day. We send our love and words of appreciation to our moms. We call them to say “Thank you, mom.” What can’t be said over the phone is conveyed by cards and flowers. We love our moms.
Can you also guess what day this is? This is a special day we celebrate on the third Sunday of June every year. Yes, it is the Father’s Day.
Many theories abound as to the origin of this holiday but the one most widely held is that it was born in 1910, at the suggestion of Mrs. Sorona Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington whose father raised her and her five brothers single-handed after his wife’s death. There was already a Mother’s Day and Mrs. Dodd was convinced that fathers should also be honored. “Fathers are the great gift-givers of the world,” she said.
Mrs. Dodd, when asked in 1953 how Father’s Day should be spent, voiced the same thoughts she had when she conceived of the idea: “It should include family attendance at church, a little gift for Dad, and some tender words you’ve always longed to say to him.”
Families are strongest when this sentiment flourishes and grows in the home. So is the Church. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” Jesus says in the Gospel for the day.
R.D. Laing said, “…what we think is less than what we know; what we know is less than what we love; what we love is less than what there is. And to that extent we are so much less than what we are.”
God has entrusted the secret of love to our mothers and fathers. They reveal it to us. This makes what we are.
We love you mom and dad!
Your Pastor Andrew
