A quiet revival undertaken during the recently concluded eight year reign of Benedict XVI was that of the beautiful bestowal of the Golden Rose, which is customarily blessed by the Roman Pontiff on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent. While now generally conferred on shrines, in its most recent history it was given as a token of the Pope's esteem and paternal affection to Catholic royalty, particularly the ladies viz., princesses, queens and emperesses. Which, of course, brings us naturally to Mother's Day and no, not the one started by Anna Jarvis.
Mothering Sunday, the affectionate appellation arriving from the United Kingdom, developed from the late Medieval English custom of apprentices and young servants being given leave and returning home to visit one's mother church, that is the one where they were baptized, on Mid-Lent Sunday. The intriguingly illuminating Introit of the Mass provides the liturgical foundations for the obliging observance: "Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her: rejoice with joy, you who have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. Psalm: I rejoiced because they said to me, We will go up to the house of the Lord." Obviously since they made the journey to their hometown and with maternal imagery appearing again in the epistle read at Mass the youngesters positively paid an especial visit of gracious gratitude to their mothers in the natural order. Often the employer would provide the lad or lass with some spare shillings to provide for some fresh flowers or the classic confection forever associated with this day, also known as Refreshment Sunday, simnel cake. The fruity fare is topped generally by eleven marizpan balls representing the Apostolic College (obviously minus the Iscariot), although this accidental allegorical accretion has been decried by some as a vicious Victorian versimilitude. While its origin has been tried to be connected to pardoned prentender to the throne (because he was a then ten year pliant puppet of Yorkist rebels) and royal baker Lambert Simnel this theory unravels almost as quickly the unfortunate usurpation since simnel cakes are mentioned in literature a few centuries previous. The medieval Oxford philogist John de Garlandia posits that the name most likely derives from the Latin word 'simila' meaning fine, of course refering to the white flour used in the mix and possibly to the rich ingredients found in the recipe. Another legend surrounding the precocious pastry eaten on the Sunday of the Five Loaves suggests that the name came from a sister (Nell) and brother (Simon) who wanted to make a cake for their mother. One wanted to bake the cake, the other to boil it. They decided to do both and bring them together in one which became the Simnel Cake. Decisively dumping these meandering musings let us turn to that vivaciously virile vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire, Robert Herrick, for the last word on this essentially ecclessiastical marvelous Matronalia:
I'll to thee a Simnell bring,
'Gainst thou go'st a-mothering,
So that when she blesses thee
Half that blessing thou'lt give me.
Mr. Screwtape
No comments:
Post a Comment