Fourth Sunday of Lent · 大斋期第四个主日
Mothering Sunday: older than Mother's Day, and not really about mothers at first
母亲节（英式）：比“Mother's Day”更古老，最初其实与母亲无关
A Lent tradition of returning to your 'mother church' slowly turned into a day for actual mothers.
一个大斋期“回母堂”的传统，是如何慢慢演变成一个属于母亲的节日的。
Mothering Sunday predates the American-originated Mother's Day by centuries, and started as something quite different: a mid-Lent custom of returning to your home or "mother" church — the main church or cathedral of the area — for a special service, often involving a journey back to your home parish and, by extension, your family.
英国的母亲节比源自美国的“Mother's Day”早了数百年，最初的形式也大不相同：这是大斋期中段的一个习俗，人们要回到自己所属的“母堂”——即当地的主教座堂或主要教堂——参加一场特别的礼拜，往往意味着要返回自己的家乡教区，也顺带回到家人身边。
Because servants and apprentices were traditionally given the day off to make that journey home, the visit naturally became bound up with seeing one's mother, and gifts followed — most enduringly, simnel cake, a fruit cake topped with eleven marzipan balls representing the apostles (minus Judas). Falling exactly three weeks before Easter, its date moves around the calendar every year, landing anywhere from early March to early April.
由于仆人和学徒传统上会在这一天获准回家探亲，这趟旅程自然也就与探望母亲联系在一起，随之而来的还有礼物——流传最广的是“辛姆内尔蛋糕”（simnel cake），一种水果蛋糕，上面装饰着11颗代表使徒的杏仁膏球（不包括叛徒犹大）。这一天定在复活节前整整三周，因此日期每年都会在日历上浮动，可能落在3月初到4月初之间的任何一天。
Seen from the other side · 换个角度看
Chinese tradition never developed a single fixed 'mother's day' of its own — filial devotion runs through festivals like Double Ninth Day instead, which honours all elders rather than singling out mothers. The globally-imported American Mother's Day date (second Sunday of May) is now also widely marked in mainland China, sitting alongside older family customs rather than replacing them.
中国传统上并没有形成一个固定的“母亲节”，孝道更多体现在重阳节这类节日中——敬老而非专门歌颂母亲。如今，源自美国、全球通行的母亲节日期（5月的第二个星期日）在中国大陆也被广泛庆祝，与更古老的家庭习俗并行不悖，而非取而代之。