Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday (or Midlent Sunday), supposed to be the day on which, in popish times, people visited the mother-church and made their annual offering. In more recent times children and servants in England obtain leave to visit their parents on this day. This custom, according to some, originated in this Sunday being the Dominica Refectionis, or Sunday of Refreshment, the gospel for the day being the record of the miraculous banquet to the five thousand in the desert. On that day the guests used to eat frumenty, consisting of whole grains of wheat, boiled in milk, and sweetened and spiced.