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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ТРАВЕНЬ 2010 13 OUR LIFE Monthly, published by Ukrainian National Women’s League of America Vol. LXVI I MAY 2010 SHARING THOUGHTS, VIEWS, & NEWS Most countries that celebrate Mother ’ s Day do so on the second Sunday of May. On this day, it is common for mothers to be lavished with presents and special attention from their families, friends , and loved ones. But it hasn’t always been this way. Only recently dubbed “Mother ’ s Day,” the highly traditional practice of honoring motherhood is rooted in antiquity, and past rites typically had strong symbolic and spiritual overtones; societies tended to celebrate goddesses and symbols rather than actual mothers. In fact, the personal, human touch to Mother’s Day is a relatively new phenomenon. In 1908 a U.S. Senator proposed making Mother ’ s Day a national holiday at the request of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). The proposal was defeated, but by 1909, forty - six states (as well as parts of Canada and Me xico) were holding Mother ’ s Day services. And it was in 1914 that Woodrow Wilson signed a bill proclaiming the second Sunday in May as Mother ’ s Day. The U.S. version of Mother’s Day — the version most widely exported to the rest of the world — has secular roo ts followed up by extensive commercialization. We can only hope that the deeper, more personal meaning of Mother’s Day outweighs this commercial end. Mother’s Day should be a day of remembrance and a day of celebration. If our mothers have left us, we shou ld remember and celebrate all that they were, all that they sacrificed, and all they contributed to making us the persons we are today. If we are fortunate enough to have our mothers in our midst, then, on this special day, we should tell them how much we appreciate who they are and how much they’ve given of themselves during family years together. The month of May also takes on a more spiritual meaning because it is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was in the late 18th century that this devotion to Mary arose among Jesuits in Rome. In the early years of the 19th century, it quickly spread throughout the Western Church, and, by the time of Pope Pius IX ’ s declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, it had become universal. Perhaps w e can take the month of May as an opportunity to renew or even begin our devotion to the Mother of God and dust off our rosaries. We all curiously follow the events in Ukraine, and I was privy to hear many opinions during the quarterly meeting of the Boar d of Directors of the World Congress of Ukrainians. One important matter to which UNWLA had to react was the current Ukrainian administration’s position on the Famine Genocide of 1932 – 1933. Besides the fact that reference to the Holodomor has been removed from the President’s official website, it came to our attention that the Ukrainian government has postponed any financial commitment to the proposed monument to the Holodomor in Washington, D.C. until at least 2012. Unless the monument is completed by 2013 , the U.S. government, which donated the land to the Ukrainian government for this purpose, will reclaim the property. Because the UNWLA has championed this cause since 1933, the Executive Committee felt it was necessary to write an open letter to the Pres ident of Ukraine on this matter. The letter was delivered to President Yanukovych during his official stay in Washington April 11 – April 14. (Please see the full text of the letter on page 3). A letter of condolence from the UNWLA Executive Committee was s e n t to the Polish Embassy in Washington, D.C., on the occasion of the horrific accident that took the lives of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Poland’s First Lady, the presidential delegation, and the armed forces leadership. The President and his entou rage were en route to Katyn to participate in commemorative observances marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre — the mass murder of more than twenty thousand Polish prisoners of war, primarily military officers, who were executed by the Soviet NK VD.
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