Archbishop to bless mothers at Cathedral Mother's Day mass

Mother's Day in Los Angeles County today will include mothers being presented with carnations during Masses at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and a remembrance service at Hillside Memorial Park & Mortuary.

Archbishop José H. Gomez will celebrate the 10 a.m. Engish-language Mass at the downtown cathedral where he will bless all mothers present. Another Engish-language Mass will be celebrated at 8 a.m. and a Spanish-language Mass at 12:30 p.m. All three Masses will be streamed on facebook.com/lacatholics and youtube.com/olacathedral.

“We should give thanks to God for our mothers every day for all their sacrifices and love,” Gomez said. “For Catholics, motherhood is a vocation, a special calling from Jesus Christ. Mothers especially, are our first teachers about prayer, charity and the practices of our Christian faith.”

Mother's Day also marks the start of a monthlong collection of prayer petitions from the faithful for the intercession of the Blessed Mother Mary, which will be blessed and presented at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City by Gomez at a special Mass on July 6.

Faithful at the Mother's Day Masses will be invited to leave their petitions in the Chapel of the Tilma of St. Juan Diego at the end of Mass.    

The remembrance service at the Culver City cemetery will begin at 10 a.m. in its large sanctuary and include music, song and prayer for what organizers call “an unforgettable morning of love, remembrance and tribute.” 

It will be led by Rabbi Cantor Alison Wissot of Temple Judea in Tarzana and streamed at www.hillsidememorial.org.

Following the service, attendees are invited to share their stories and memories of their mothers.

The two-time Grammy-winning group Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea will perform at Vallarta Supermarkets' fifth annual Mother's Day Serenade at 9 a.m. at its Pasadena store.

The performance will be streamed at Vallarta Supermarkets' Facebook and Instagram pages.

In his Mother's Day proclamation, President Joe Biden wrote, ``This Mother's Day, may we all show gratitude to our mothers, who are our rocks, believing in us so that we may believe in ourselves. May we pray for those who have lost their mothers and miss their comfort each day and for the mothers who have lost a child -- a piece of their soul.”

Mother's Day was initially proposed in 1870 by activist-poet Julia Ward Howe as a call for peace and disarmament. It was celebrated in 18 cities in 1873, continued for another 10 years or so in Boston under Howe's backing, then died out.

The second attempt to establish Mother's Day began on May 9, 1907, the second anniversary of the death of Anna Jarvis' mother Ann.

Jarvis invited several friends to her home in Philadelphia in commemoration of her mother's life, which included providing nursing care and promoting better sanitation during the Civil War, helping save lives on both sides.

Jarvis announced to her friends her idea of a day of national celebration in honor of mothers, which was first celebrated on May 10, 1908, at the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia, where Ann Jarvis worshipped.

The church is now known as the International Mother's Day Shrine.

West Virginia Gov. William E. Glasscock issued the first Mother's Day proclamation in 1910.

By 1911, it was celebrated in nearly every state. President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional joint resolution in 1914 designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day nationally.