Today is Mother’s Day, and on this day we recall with deep gratitude the love our mothers showed us, and the sacrifices they made on their behalf. We also remember those women for whom motherhood is more of a burden than a blessing, but who struggle as best they can properly to nurture their children. Through it all we remember the God who alone has made possible the institution of the human family, our creator and redeemer. Let us therefore, with confidence, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
O Lord, our Lord, Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. We thank Thee for many ways known and unknown to us by which Thou hast entered into our hearts, drawing us ever closer to Thee and to Thy kingdom. We thank Thee for all those people in our lives whose example and whose words to us have given us greater insights into Thy purposes for the world and for our own lives: teachers, preachers, mentors of various kinds, writers, composers, and ordinary people doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way.
Most of all on this Mothers Day do we praise Thee for Thy grace illustrated in the love and concern of our mothers, particularly in our most formative years. We recall how they frequently gave up their own time on our behalf, making their time our time. We are grateful for the love they showed us, even when we ourselves may have acted in an unlovely fashion. We realize, O God, that it is by Thy creative power that a unique bond is developed between mothers and their children, and that without that bond, most of us would be far less the people Thou wouldst have us to be. We pray for all mothers and fathers and children everywhere, especially for those whose family lives are threatened by poverty, disease, economic uncertainty, or warfare. Give power to the powerless, hope to the hopeless, and help to the helpless.
We pray for children and young people whose mothers are no longer in their lives for whatever reason, and who must somehow make their way in the world without the special care and nurture which only a mother can provide. Be with single fathers as they attempt to be both mother and father to their children, with legal guardians and foster parents as they seek to provide an alternative to the more traditional concept of a family, to the countless number of women and men who have in effect become surrogate parents to children to whom they have no genetic relationship but in whom children find a family of sorts which serves them well in their years of maturation. Yoke all of us together more closely, O God of never-ending love. These prayers we offer in the name Jesus Christ. Now we pray together as he taught his first disciples, saying, Our Father….