Midweek Musings... Lent #13

I am not actually preaching this week; our student is taking the whole service, so I get to sit back and listen for a change.
I have however still read through the lectionary readings and worked out what I might do, if I were in charge...
The readings are familiar - 23rd Psalm and John 9 - the healing of a blind man. 
It is also Mothering Sunday here in Scotland (the UK) so there is that to consider too... 
The history of Mothering Sunday is itself interesting, for it arises not from celebrating the woman who gave you birth, but from the church that baptised you.
In the Victorian period, many young girls and boys were in service and expected to attend the church attached to the house they served; on the 4th Sunday of Lent they were given leave to go home to worship in their Mother Church; traditionally as they went, they gathered wild flowers to present to their own mothers when they arrived.
This is of course folklore, and I do not know the full accuracy of the sources, but it is what I have always understood. As time went by greetings cards became more widely available and latched onto the idea, creating Mothers Day cards, and thus a multi-million pound industry was born! 
We will be presenting a small gift to every woman in church, whether she is a mother, or she "mothers" - bearing a child is not the only indicator of motherhood.