Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
Established many years ago this Sunday in our country we celebrate in the afterglow of Pascha, Mother’s Day. This is a very important day in the life of our country where we pay homage and thankfulness to our mothers, grandmothers, etc., for their many sacrifices on our behalf.
Over the years families usually go to Church, then usually out to a restaurant or other venue where all family members join together in celebration of motherhood. It is a time for us as Christians and Americans to offer our gifts of love and admiration to those women, living and dead, who made an impact on our upbringing and success.
We must remember how important it is for us to honor our own and other women who not only provided and nurtured their families but significantly contributed to the well being of our society and country from the very foundation of our great nation. Countless mothers have sacrificed their own lives for the betterment of our values and those of all Americans.
Too often we honor those men who founded this great country, sometimes forgetting the many women, mothers, and wives who nurtured these men with their warm love, inculcating within them the importance of faith in God, family and country.
We in the Orthodox Church honor the Most Holy Mother of God, Theotokos who gave her Son to redeem us and grant our salvation. It is the utmost example of the sacrifice of a mother for the whole world. For as we experienced during the many services of Holy Week, how she accompanied Jesus throughout His ordeal, trial, crucifixion and glorious Resurrection. The Theotokos shines her radiance on us as the epitome of Motherhood.
So as we celebrate this day, let us offer prayers for those mothers with us and those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, remembering they lived their lives for the betterment of their family and children. It is up to us to teach this to the next generation so that they know about our own mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, godmothers, from generations past.
Let us with one voice offer to all of them our traditional Greeting, both living and dead, Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tomb bestowing life.
May God bless all of you with His abundant joy!
