Mothering mothering mothering mothering ... but never a word about ...

 Endless, endless stuff on the wireless this morning about Mothering Sunday or "Mothers' Day". But I didn't hear a word about the biblical basis of today's observance.

Every three years, during what the Informed so wisely call YEAR C, Novus Ordo worshippers are graciously allowed to hear selected, safe extracts from S Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. But, poor vulnerable poppets, they are preserved from the whole of Chapter 4.

Gotta protect them, you see ... from ... er ...

In this brilliant chapter, Christendom's ablest mind in two thousand years explains that our Patriarch Abraham had two sons; that these two represent allegorically the two Covenants. The first, son of Hagar, symbolises "the present Jerusalem" (tei nun Ierousalem), who is in slavery with her children. But the second, "the Jerusalem above" (he de ano Ierousalem), is free, and she is our Mother.

We, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. 

But Hush. This is information reserved to obscurantist old Bible Students who heard Galatians 4 this morning. 

We are the tekna tes eleutheras.