This Sunday we arrive at the midpoint of Lent, with the Sunday is known to Western-rite Christians as Laetare Sunday or ‘Refreshment Sunday’—and of course, in England, as Mothering Sunday’.  As part of our preparation for Easter, with its renewal of baptismal vows, we are encouraged to return to our Mother Church, the church where we were given new birth in baptism, and also to honour our mothers who gave us actual birth, along with those who have cared for us as a mother.

This Mothering Sunday, however, there are countless mothers and children around the globe for whom there can be no return to their families, hometowns, or Mother Church. They include more than 2.5 million people whose homes have been destroyed by the earthquakes in Turkey and northern Syria, and over 8 million Ukrainian refugees spread across Europe.  We are now halfway towards the joy of Easter and the relaxation of Lenten discipline: the end is in sight.  Refugees and displaced people around the world currently have no end in sight.  And even when it is safe to return, rebuilding shattered cities will take decades.  Last year on Mothering Sunday, the Ukrainian invasion had been going for 32 days. Incredibly, today marks Day 388. 

What better way to mark Lent IV, and honour our mothers, than by almsgiving in support of charities helping those from whom everything has been taken away, by natural disaster or the disaster of war?

https://stories.savethechildren.org.uk/four-mothers-from-ukraine/