On March 3, 2008, this group observed an old English tradition called Mothering Sunday. In this case, the people of St. Joseph in Branson, Missouri, and the people of St. Thomas in Mountain Home, Arkansas, returned to their mother church, St. Francis in Ava, Missouri. Fr. Sam Seamans (pictured on the left), is the rector of St. Thomas Anglican Church.   Fr. Jim McTaggart (pictured 2nd from left) and Deacon Don Holley (far right) are with St. Joseph Anglican Church, Branson, Missouri, and Fr. Glen Hartley (3rd from left), is the rector of St. Francis Anglican Church.

In modern times, the term "Mothering Sunday" is essentially equivalent to Mother's Day, but this is a recent development and its history is quite different.

Mothering Sunday did not begin as a celebration of motherhood, but a synonym of Laetare Sunday in the Christian liturgical calendar. During the sixteenth century, people returned to their "mother church" for a service to be held on the fourth Sunday of Lent. This was either a large local church, or more often the nearest Cathedral. Anyone who did this was commonly said to have gone "a-mothering". It was often the only time that whole families could gather together, if prevented by conflicting working hours.

The Epistle for the fourth Sunday in Lent as set out in the Book of Common Prayer gives a special place to the theme of maternal love: Galatians 4:26 states that "Jerusalem which is above is free; which is Mother of us all."