Laetare Sunday Celebrations

As I was making plans for our Feast on Saturday. I began thinking of the tradition both Stephen and I had grown up with on Laetare Sunday , or more commonly know to us as "Mothering Sunday."

After Church a few of the ladies of the parish would have a basket or tray of wrapped up Simnel Cake to hand out to the mothers as they processed out of church.
These or other ladies of the parish would have made the Simnel Cake each year.

It has been a long time since we have been in a parish that supported this old tradition.
I believe that it is only because I had to go shopping on Saturday afternoon, and only because I was doing my planning via a Blog post (and not hand written so I had to look up links), and only because Rogan had not seen this tradition happening (I was explaining thye meaning of Laetare Sunday to him,) and only because we went late in the day was I able to catch Father John before the Vigil Mass were we able to start this new tradition at our church.

As I write this I am vividly aware that God was in control of the whole affair. What a great and glorious God we serve!!!!!
So having asked Father John's permission to introduce this tradtion to our Parish, we bought the items we needed. This is a miracle in itself as for a little while we would not normally have had any'extra' to cover this sort of expense.
Not having time to bake a Simnel cake we bought some nice quality fruit cake from the supermarket. We didn't even have any left over Christmas cakes this year to use.

After the other children were in bed Autumn, Eden and I started getting our little offering ready.
This was an 11:30pm start. Of course we had a late dinner and of course the little ones were unsettled.
However I wasn't stressed by this at all and the girls were having fun starying> up late and doing this together.

We started a production line. I cut the cake up, Eden cut the paper to size and Autumn cut the curling ribbon to length.

We then went up to the family room turned on the BBC Pride and Prejudice and started wrapping the Simnel cake up ready for the morning.
Let me just say that it took a little while and we went to bed in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

I thoroughly enjoyed this time with our older two girls and they were so helpful with this project.
I am also thankful that God was able to use us in this way and that many of the Mothers after Mass were very excited about receiving the Simnel cake and understanding the significance of the term "Mothering Sunday."
Baskets of Simnel cake to take to Mass.
Our own Mothering Sunday cake as per the plans on Catholic Culture. It was quick and easy to make but it looked and tasted great.
Our Laetare Sunday family altar.

Blessings,