I don’t normally include Joint Liturgical Studies within the scope of this blog – but I found Alice Watson’s reflections particularly enlightening.
Despite the devotion to the Mary, mother of Jesus, in some traditions, it is general within the frame of her being the Blessed Virgin Mary – making it a devotion that acts to highlight her distinction from every other mother.
The liturgy of the Churching of Women after childbirth, for all the problematic baggage around purification, was a a liturgy that was focused on the mother.
Alice Watson points out that The Church of England’s Common Worship replacement, the Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child moves the focus from mother to child – and in her experience created a sense of marginalisation.
Given many struggle with post-natal depression and other struggles around identity and sense of self after the birth of a child the lack of any liturgical provision seems a genuine oversight (given Common Worship provides for so many many other situations…).
Alice Watson offers some suggestions about the potential content of such a liturgical response which deserve to be more widely known – maybe not for routine use but so Ministers can add them to their toolkit of pastoral responses.
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