Thought For The Day – Monday 20^th March 2023

Sunday 19th March was Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday.

The origins of this day date back to the Middle Ages, the custom developed of allowing people who had moved away from where they grew up to come back to visit their home or ‘mother’ churches, and their mothers, on the fourth Sunday of the Christian festival of Lent.  This became known as Mothering Sunday.

Yesterday, on Mothering Sunday,  mothers were celebrated, thanked and remembered.

King Charles III posted a poignant message, with the photograph below:  “To all mothers everywhere, and to those who may be missing their mums today, we are thinking of you and wishing you a special Mother’s Day.”

Before the League Cup Final, Newcastle United Football Club manager Eddie Howe, who has led Newcastle from second to last position in the Premier League to fifth place and a cup final in a little over a year, and led Bournemouth from the foot of the second division to the Premier League before that, paid tribute to his inspirational mother, Anne, who passed away in 2012.  Anne’s first job of the day was at 4 a.m. at her local newsagents.  Anne  would take Eddie to the park to play football, where she was often the goalkeeper.  On the 23rd February earlier this year, Eddie said the following very moving words about his mum:

“I’ve sort of got a vision of her willing me on.  It’s a strange feeling, but I feel her presence by my side. Whether we win, lose or draw, it’s, ‘Go on. You can do it’. That’s helped me. That’s really given me strength in difficult moments in my career. She will be there supporting me this weekend. I can feel it. I just hope, as always, I can do her proud. I’ve tried to use my mum’s passing positively by taking on the mantle and going, ‘I’m going to give it more’ because my mum sacrificed so much to give me an opportunity in football and in life with a good chance to have a successful life and I can’t waste that opportunity she gave me. It was more thanking her in the right way rather than wallowing in a negative situation and then almost giving that opportunity away that she had worked so hard to give.”