Mothers of Salem

 The link for this week's live-streamed service is here.

This week we celebrated Mothers' Day, with cake. Yay!

When I was a child, we wore a flower to church on Mother's Day, a coloured one if your mother was living and a white one if your mother had passed away. In northern Ontario, finding flowers in bloom in early May was a challenge. We often resorted to the potted geraniums on a sunny windowsill. Not exactly a fashionable boutonniere but it did the trick. The actual flower wasn't important. What mattered was the symbol of love and respect for mothers. 

Fathers' Day didn't carry the same cachet. And there was no "children's day." Perhaps that is why the church, in her wisdom, has moved to "Christian Family Sunday," so we can celebrate the special kind of love that binds kith and kin together.

As part of the Sunday service we sang, When Mothers of Salem, a favourite with our clerk of session. We use the 1972 Book of Praise at SPPC. The hymn did not make it into the "new" Book of Praise, published in 1997. In fact, many of the hymns I sang as a child are omitted from the latest version of our hymnbook. Anyone remember "When He Cometh?" It's not in the new hymnbook either, yet, while I was pulling weeds in the flower bed and thinking about this blog, I discovered I remembered every word. What we teach children really matters. Those lessons and poems will last a lifetime.

"When Mothers of Salem" was penned by  William Medlen Hutchings, in 1850. It was was written for the anniversary service of St. Paul's Chapel Sunday School, Wigan, in 1850, and was published in a revised form in the Juvenile Missionary Magazine of June 1850. The text is based on the Biblical story told three Gospels, Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 18

Although the text is a retelling of the Biblical story, it was seen as a "missionary" hymn, due to these lines in the last verse, "O soon may the people of every land and nation, /Fulfil Thy blessed word, and cast their idols all away;"

The new hymnbook does not have a children's section, but it has an index of "Items for Children and Youth." The index includes everything from Christmas carols to communion. The segment on Mission contains seven suggestions, including "Jesus bids us shine." That's one I recognize from childhood. 

Neither our "old" nor our "new" hymn books list "mothers" in the topical index, but both refer to "family," and both include the hymn, "Happy the home when God is there." That hymn is a great reminder that giving mom a day off and maybe breakfast in bed, is a great way to show her love, but it is God who makes a home truly happy. Another memory from my childhood was that the whole family pleased mom by going with her to church on Mothers' day!

Western culture has secularized many of our holy days, while the church has taken the secular Mothers' Day, and shaped it into a celebration of family with God at the heart of our human relationships. 

I hope everyone had a Happy Mothers' Day and that the children did the dishes. I also hope we all gave prayers of thanks to God for His divine love.

Cake!

 The link for this week's live-streamed service is here

Last Sunday was Mother's Day, so SPPC celebrated with -- what else-- cake. It has been a while since we had cake after service so I was glad to get a piece. It was a white cake and very tasty.

Then, this Sunday, we celebrated Brian's birthday with a chocolate cake. 

It too, was very tasty. The chocolate in the icing was just right. Thank you, Brian, for sharing your cake.

Happy Birthday, Brian. 

 We won't have to wait long for another treat. Next Sunday, May 25 the mission team, who went to the Dominican Republic in March, will make a presentation to the congregation following the service. There will also be food.

On May 29, Friendship Coffee meets at 10:00 in the morning. There are always goodies to go with the coffee. This is a great time to bring a friend and enjoy some fellowship time.

Then, on June the 7th we'll enjoy a catered lunch to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the church building. For those who can't make it out on Saturday, there will be cake following the service on June 8.

Regular readers of this blog may think I obsess about cake, and maybe I do, but we have such beautiful cakes. The two featured at the top of this page are works of art, but look at this one.

 or this one.

Gorgeous!

Not only are out cakes beautiful and flavourful, they are a sign of hospitality. The early Christians made eating together part of their worship. 

At SPPC we invite all to share in the breaking of bread. Friend or stranger, all are welcome to come for a cup of coffe, a slice of cake, and a good conversation. Please come.

A "New" Mother's Day

 The link for this week's live-streamed service is here.

Sunday was Mother's Day. In the church we call it "Family Day," but everyone knows that Mom is the star of the show. How fitting, then that we celebrated the sacrament of Baptism at SPPC on that day. We welcomed baby Owen William Dean into the family of God and into the fellowship of Saanich Peninsula Presbyterian Church.

And we celebrated his Mom and his whole extended family as all of us together promised to uphold them as they raise, this child, offering guidance, teaching and support in Christian love.

We've had other baptisms at SPPC but more often than not, our connection to the baby is through grandparents or other relatives. Many times, the child doesn't live on the Saanich Peninsula, so our involvement is by long distance.

Owen, on the other hand, has been attending SPPC since he was only a few weeks old. His parents, his grandmother, and his aunt, his uncle and his cousin are all faithful members of our congregation. We look forward to watching him grow in "wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man."

Of course, we celebrated with cake. 

And for those who may be missing their mom at this time, I found this little fragment of poetry.

. . . She taught me all of beauthy that I know 

The deathless creed of blossom and of wing

And still I find her love's reflected glow

      In every lovely thing.

Love never ends. 

Thanks, Mom.

forget-me-not

Mother's Day post-Covid

 

Cake for Mother's Day

On Saturday there was a memorial service at SPPC. We celebrated a sister in Christ, a mother, a grandmother and a friend. On Sunday, we marked Mother's Day. The juxtaposition of these two services may seem odd but they were in fact complementary.

On Saturday we heard of a woman who loved and was loved by her family. She offered them fun and adventure, wisdom and nurture, encouragement and discipline -- sometimes at the end of a wooden spoon. Despite the tales of pranks and mishaps the important  memories were those of a happy family and their mother. It was an uplifting service. One to honour a woman of faith.

There are many mothers mentioned in the Bible, --Hannah, Rebekah, Naomi, Elizabeth -- but two stand out to me. 

• Sarah, who laughed at God's promise, and became the mother of a nation in her old age. Genesis 21. 
• Mary, the teenager, who bowed her head and declared "be it unto me according to Thy word," and became the mother of Jesus. Luke 1: 26-38. Despite living in a patriarchal society, these women were chosen to be instruments of God.

Scripture also uses maternal metaphors to describe God. In Hosea 13:8 God is described with the fierceness of a mother bear defending her cubs. In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we find the reference to a mother hen gathering her chicks beneath her wings, sheltering them from danger, keeping them warm on a cold night. 

While the Presbyterian Church in Canada recognizes the second Sunday of  May as Christian Family Day, a more inclusive concept, we all know it is really Mother's Day. We offer special prayers for mothers and others who fill that role. Those who nurture the young and care for the sick and elderly. Those who guide and teach and give of themselves. Those who pray for peace in the world. 

So, the service of remembrance for a beloved mother held so close to Mother's Day is fitting. May God bless all mothers and all families, especially those who are missing their mom this week.

MOTHER'S DAY

   

On Sunday, we celebrated Mother's Day, or Family Sunday, as it's known in the church.  Some cynics claim that Mother's Day was invented by the greeting card companies as a way to sell more cards but there have been festivals celebrating mothers as far back as 250 B.C.  Whatever its origins, the second Sunday of May is a time to say thank you to all the mothers amongst us and to celebrate the love of family, in all its shapes and forms.
     At SPPC we are a particular kind of family and I thought you might like to know what "our kids" have been up to.

      Rebekah and Megan have been to a band festival in Whistler.  This was a big adventure for them, travelling with a school group of about 40 musicians, playing before an adjudicator and then taking part in a master class.  

They report the weather was great, the trip was fun, the master class was super and we'll all forget about the adjudicator.

Apparently the food was good too!

       

This is a bear, not the adjudicator

      Peter has taken up baseball this term.  He had a big hit at a recent game, knocked in run, and his team went on to win the game.  Great for Peter and even better that his brother was so excited for him.  That's what families do.  We cheer each other on, sharing our joy and lightening our disappointments.
        Max has been in several rowing regattas but the big one was at Mill Bay a few weeks go.

 His four-man squad won the junior varsity event with 22 seconds to spare (That's huge in rowing terms).  Not only that, given their time, they would have placed second if they'd been competing in the varsity race.  Way to go, Max!
     

     Elizabeth, our resident guest pianist, won the piano concerto contest at U Vic.  The prize gives her bragging rights but no cash.  On the other hand, she does get to play a concerto with the U Vic symphony next year.  I love Elizabeth's playing and really look forward to attending that concert.

   

Felicity spent a lot of time in the kitchen and produced this beautiful cake in honour of all the mothers in our

congregation.  Not only did the cake look wonderful, it tasted great too.  (I heard a rumour that the youth class might be holding a bake sale -- if that is true, I'll buy one of Felicity's cakes!)
   

      But while we are celebrating with cards and flowers and special dinners, let us remember the mothers and daughters around the world who suffer, especially those in Nigeria, where violent men seek to enslave girls in ignorance and poverty, just because they are girls.  Evil abounds in this world in many guises but the kidnapping of school girls is particularly egregious.

   For the joy of human love,
  Brother, sister, parent, child,
  Friends on earth, and friends above,
  For all gentle thoughts and mild,
  Lord of all, to Thee we raise




  This our sacrifice of praise.