Thank you Ed. May God bless you for your kindness in remembering us!
I would also like to wish my fellow mothers a most blessed and joyous Mother's Day, Penthaetria, Pani Rose, Carole,
Porter, and all those other beautiful, caring and intelligent Christian women of this forum that are mothers.
To answer your question, my church handed out red long stemmed roses to all the mothers, and our Priest honored us with a great sermon, stories, and private thoughts about the love of mothers.
Our women's philanthropic group, (Philoptochos), of which I am a board member, honors and votes for a 'Mother of the Year' from our parish each year on this day. Occasionally, we have honored women of great nurturing to the parish who are not even biological mothers. This year, in honor of our parish's fiftieth anniversary, we decided to honor the *mother of ALL mothers*, our blessed, ever-virgin Mary, the Mother of our God! In her honour, we voted on alloting $1000 to the Ronald McDonald House charity in New York City, which is a place to stay for the families of children undergoing cancer treatment from all over the country and the world.
After this was announced by our Philoptochos president, Father led us in chanting the hymn, 'Tin Ipermaho' ('Invinciple Champion')while facing her icon on the iconastasis..this is a very old hymn from Byzantium, which is now a part of the Akathist Hymn, and which was written in gratitude to the Theotokos for her intercessions in miraculously turning back the invading enemy.
It was quite touching.
Blessed Mother of our God, intercede for us and save us!
In Christ,
Alice
