When Lent is halfway through, the Church calendar allows a slight let-up in the Lenten fasting and other disciplines. The gospel of the day tells the story of the feeding of the 5000, so, appropriately, the day became known as refreshment Sunday.
In its early-years. The Church required priest and people to visit to the mother Church of the district on this day. The custom became associated with pleasant gatherings of families and reunions of children with their mothers. Hence the popular name for the day is mothering Sunday.
By the 17th and 18th centuries it had become the practice for serving maids and apprentices to be given a holiday on this day so that they could visit their mothers. They had probably left their own homes by the time they were 10 and from then on lived in accommodation provided by their masters. Mothering Sunday would be the only day in the year when they would see their families and their own home again.
They took gifts of flowers or special cakes; these were spicy and made with a fine flower called in Latin simila so they became to be known as simnel cakes.
That is why we have Simnel cake on Mothering Sunday
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