|
Hi, Monique —
This is one of my major pet peeves
with the Church on a non-doctrinal
custom, but it's also an area where,
I believe, we can have a difference
of opinion.
In the Boston area, many, if not
most, of the sermons on Holy Thursday
emphasis the priesthood of
the baptized and the importance
of fulfilling our baptismal calling
to serve others.
While this is important, the universal
priesthood of believers was
not initiated on Holy Thursday.
The universal priesthood of believers
is initiated at our own Baptism. We can celebrate our universal priesthood
on the feast of the Baptism of the
Lord, just after the liturgical season
of Christmas.
Remember His Baptism is Our Baptism. Why?
Because in Baptism we are not only
baptized into His Death, but baptized
into His Resurrection.
The ministerial priesthood of Holy
Orders was instituted on Holy Thursday.
Again, in my opinion, because priests
want to be liked and not offend anyone
in the parish, especially the hard
working but uncatechized women of
the parish, instead of talking about
the call to the sacramental priesthood
and what the ministerial priesthood
is all about, they bow to people
pressure from within
the inner parish circles on this,
especially when it comes to this non-doctrinal
custom of the washing of the
feet.
On a night where the emphasis should
be on the ministerial, sacramental
priesthood, it is instead focused
on the priesthood of the baptized.
In doing so, and allowing the washing
of women's feet, pastors and priests
of the Church can mistakenly be sending an
incorrect, doctrinal error, that
women can become priests.
Beside the Holy Thursday Rubrics state:
"After the Homily, where a pastoral reason suggests it, the Washing of Feet follows. The men who have been chosen (viri selecti) are led by the ministers to seats prepared in a suitable place. Then the priest (removing his chasuble if necessary) goes to each one, and, with the help of the ministers, pours water over each one's feet and then dries them."
The term viri selecti does indeed mean chosen men — that is, adult males who have been selected for participation in the rite. Therefore, if someone is washing the feet of any females (or, it seems, even of males under 18, per 1983 CIC 97), he is in violation of the Holy Thursday rubrics.
You said:
- In the Holy Thursday
service, in the foot washing ceremony,
shouldn't all those who get their
feet washed be men since they represent
the apostles of Jesus?
Yes, it should for the reasons I've
stated above.
You said:
- Is there anything
official about this you can point
me to?
Yes! In my research, I've found several
quotes, where our current Holy Father,
Pope Benedict XVI and our previous
Holy Father, Pope St. John Paul
II emphasize the two different customs
for the washing of the feet. I personally
tend to side with our previous Holy
Father, Pope St. John Paul
II's custom. The
appropriate texts of the quotes follow
below. The sections I have quoted
below are long, but I think it is
important to read as much in
context as possible. The key
areas are highlighted
appropriately.
NOTE: Sometimes when we read writings
from our current or previous pontiffs
we can forget who they are talking
to.
As you read the excerpts below on
Pope John Paul II's Letter
to Priests remember, he is
not talking to you, nor to the ordinary
Catholic parishioner in the pew,
but directly to his fellow priests
who have also received the sacrament
of Holy Orders.
In Pope
St. John Paul II's 1995 Holy
Thursday Letter to Priests he stated:
6. At this point I would like
to touch on the even wider issue
of the role which women are called
to play in the building up of
the Church. The Second Vatican
Council fully grasped the logic
of the Gospel, in Chapters Two
and Three of the Constitution
Lumen gentium, when it presented
the Church first as the People
of God and only afterwards as
a hierarchical structure. The
Church is first and foremost the
People of God, since all her members,
men and women alike, share - each
in his or her specific way - in
the prophetic, priestly and royal
mission of Christ. While I invite
you to reread those texts of the
Council, I will limit myself here
to some brief reflections drawn
from the Gospel.
Just before his Ascension into
heaven, Christ commands the Apostles: "Go
into all the world and preach
the Gospel to the whole creation" (Mark
16:15). To preach the Gospel is
to carry out the prophetic mission
which has different forms in the
Church, according to the charism
granted to each individual (cf.
Ephesians 4:11-13). In that circumstance,
since it was a question of the
Apostles and their own particular
mission, this task was entrusted
to certain men; but if we read
the Gospel accounts carefully,
especially that of John, we cannot
but be struck by the fact that
the prophetic mission, considered
in all its breadth and diversification,
is given to both men and women.
Suffice it to mention, for example,
the Samaritan woman and her dialogue
with Christ at Jacob's Well in
Sychar (cf. John 4:1-42): it is
to her, a Samaritan woman and
a sinner, that Jesus reveals the
depths of the true worship of
God, who is concerned not about the place but rather about the
attitude of worship "in spirit
and truth".
And what shall we say of the sisters
of Lazarus, Mary and Martha? The
Synoptics, speaking of the "contemplative" Mary,
note the pre-eminence which Christ
gives to contemplation over activity
(cf. Luke 10:42). Still more important
is what Saint John writes in the
context of the raising of their
brother Lazarus. In this case
it is to Martha, the more "active" of
the two, that Jesus reveals the
profound mysteries of his mission: "I
am the resurrection and the life;
he who believes in me, though
he dies, yet shall he live, and
whoever lives and believes in
me shall never die" (John 11:25-26).
The Paschal Mystery is summed
up in these words addressed to
a woman.
But let us proceed in the Gospel
account and enter into the Passion
narrative. Is it not an incontestable
fact that women were the ones
closest to Christ along the way
of the cross and at the hour of
his death? A man, Simon of Cyrene,
is forced to carry the cross (cf.
Matthew 27:32); but many women of Jerusalem
spontaneously show him compassion
along the "via crucis" (cf.
Luke 23:27). The figure of Veronica,
albeit not biblical, expresses
well the feelings of the women
of Jerusalem along the via dolorosa.
Beneath the cross there is only
one Apostle, John, the son of
Zebedee, whereas there are several
women (cf. Matthew 27:55-56): the Mother
of Christ who, according to tradition,
had followed him on his journey
to Calvary; Salome, the mother
of the sons of Zebedee, John and
James; Mary, the mother of James
the Less and Joseph; and Mary
Magdalene. All these women were
fearless witnesses of Jesus' agony;
all were present at the anointing
and the laying of his body in
the tomb. After his burial, as
the day before the Sabbath draws
to a close, they depart, but with
the intention of returning as
soon as it is allowed. And it
is they who will be the first
to go to the tomb, early in the
morning on the day after the feast.
They will be the first witnesses
of the empty tomb, and again they will be the ones to tell the Apostles
(cf. John 20:1-2). Mary Magdalene,
lingering at the tomb in tears,
is the first to meet the Risen
One, who sends her to the Apostles
as the first herald of his Resurrection
(cf. John 20:11-18). With good reason
therefore the Eastern tradition
places Mary Magdalene almost on
a par with the Apostles, since
she was the first to proclaim
the truth of the Resurrection,
followed by the Apostles and Christ's
disciples.
Thus women too, together with
men, have a part in the prophetic
mission of Christ. And the same
can be said of their sharing in
his priestly and royal mission.
The universal priesthood of the
faithful and the royal dignity
belong to both men and women.
Most enlightening in this regard
is a careful reading of the passages
of the First Letter of St Peter
(2:9-10) and of the Conciliar
Constitution Lumen gentium (nn.
10-12; 34-36).
7. In that Dogmatic Constitution,
the chapter on the People of God
is followed by the one on the
hierarchical structure of the
Church. Here reference is made
to the ministerial priesthood,
to which by the will of Christ
only men are admitted. Today in
some quarters the fact that women
cannot be ordained priests is
being interpreted as a form of
discrimination. But is this really
the case?
Certainly, the question could
be put in these terms if the hierarchical
priesthood granted a social position
of privilege characterized by
the exercise of power.
But this is not the case: the
ministerial priesthood, in Christ's
plan, is an expression not of
domination but of service! Anyone
who interpreted it as domination would
certainly be far from the intention
of Christ, who in the Upper Room
began the Last Supper by washing
the feet of the Apostles. In this
way he strongly emphasized the ministerial character
of the priesthood which he instituted
that very evening. "For
the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give
his life as a ransom for many" (Mark
10:45). |
In Pope St. John Paul
II's 2001 Holy
Thursday Letter to Priests he stated:
6. But it is not so much on pastoral
problems that I wish to dwell.
Holy Thursday, the special day
of our vocation, calls us to reflect
above all on who we are,
and in particular on our journey
to holiness. It is from this source
too that our apostolic zeal will
flow.
So, as we gaze upon Christ at
the Last Supper, as he becomes
for us the bread that is
broken, as he stoops down
in humble service at the feet
of the Apostles, how can we not
experience, together with Peter,
the same feeling of unworthiness
in the face of the greatness of
the gift received? You shall
never wash my feet (John 13:8).
Peter was wrong to reject Christ's
gesture. But he was right to feel
unworthy of it. It is important, on
this day of love par excellence,
that we should feel the grace
of the priesthood as a super-abundance
of mercy.
11. On this holy day, therefore,
let us ask Christ to help us to
rediscover, for ourselves, the
full beauty of this Sacrament. Did
not Jesus himself help Peter to
make this discovery? If
I do not wash you, you have no
part in me (John 13:8). Jesus
of course was not referring directly
to the Sacrament of Reconciliation,
but in some sense he was pointing
to it, alluding to that process
of purification which would begin
with his redeeming Death, and
to its sacramental application
to individuals down the ages. |
I couldn't find any Letters to Priests
from Pope Benedict XVI but I did
find a reference to this issue when
he gave his 2008 Holy Thursday homily
to the parishioners coming for Mass.
His view appears to be accepting
of the custom of the washing of the
feet to both:
- those called to the universal
priesthood and
- those called to the ministerial
priesthood
but then again his talk was to a
wider audience; more then just priest.
In it he said:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
St John begins his account of
how Jesus washed his disciples'
feet with an especially solemn,
almost liturgical language. "Before
the feast of the Passover, when
Jesus knew that his hour had come
to depart out of this world to
the Father, having loved his own
who were in the world, he loved
them to the end" (John 13:1). Jesus' hour, to
which all his work had been directed
since the outset, had come. John
used two words to describe what
constitutes the content of this
hour: passage (metabainein, metabasis)
and agape - love. The two words
are mutually explanatory; they
both describe the Pasch of Jesus:
the Cross and the Resurrection,
the Crucifixion as an uplifting,
a passage to God's
glory, a passing from
the world to the Father. It is
not as though after paying the
world a brief visit, Jesus now
simply departs and returns to
the Father. The passage is a transformation.
He brings with him his flesh,
his being as a man. On the Cross,
in giving himself, he is as it
were fused and transformed into
a new way of being, in which he
is now always with the Father
and contemporaneously with humankind.
He transforms the Cross, the act
of killing, into an act of giving,
of love to the end. With this
expression to the end,
John anticipates Jesus' last words
on the Cross: everything has been
accomplished, "It is finished" (19:30). Through Jesus' love the Cross
becomes metabasis, a transformation
from being human into being a
sharer in God's glory. He involves
us all in this transformation,
drawing us into the transforming
power of his love to the point
that, in our being with him, our
life becomes a passage,
a transformation. Thus, we receive
redemption, becoming sharers in
eternal love, a condition for
which we strive throughout our
life.
This essential process of Jesus'
hour is portrayed in the washing
of the feet in a sort of prophetic
and symbolic act. In it, Jesus
highlights with a concrete gesture
precisely what the great Christological
hymn in the Letter to the Philippians
describes as the content of Christ's
mystery. Jesus lays down the clothes
of his glory, he wraps around
his waist the towel of humanity
and makes himself a servant. He
washes the disciples' dirty feet
and thus gives them access to
the divine banquet to which he
invites them. The devotional and
external purifications purify
man ritually but leave him as
he is replaced by a new bathing:
Jesus purifies us through his
Word and his Love, through the
gift of himself. "You are
already made clean by the word
which I have spoken to you",
he was to say to his disciples
in the discourse on the vine (John
15:3). Over and over again he
washes us with his Word. Yes,
if we accept Jesus' words in an
attitude of meditation, prayer
and faith, they develop in us
their purifying power. Day after
today we are as it were covered
by many forms of dirt, empty words,
prejudices, reduced and altered
wisdom; a multi-facetted semi-falsity
or falsity constantly infiltrates
deep within us. All this clouds
and contaminates our souls, threatens
us with an incapacity for truth
and the good. If we receive Jesus'
words with an attentive heart
they prove to be truly cleansing,
purifications of the soul, of
the inner man. The Gospel of the
washing of the feet invites us
to this, to allow ourselves to
be washed anew by this pure water, to allow ourselves to be made capable of convivial communion
with God and with our brothers
and sisters. However, when Jesus
was pierced by the soldier's spear,
it was not only water that flowed
from his side but also blood (John
19:34; cf. 1 John 5: 6-8). Jesus
has not only spoken; he has not
left us only words. He gives us
himself. He washes us with the
sacred power of his Blood, that
is, with his gift of himself to
the end, to the Cross. His
word is more than mere speech;
it is flesh and blood for
the life of the world (John
6:51). In the holy sacraments,
the Lord kneels ever anew at our
feet and purifies us. Let us pray
to him that we may be ever more
profoundly penetrated by the sacred
cleansing of his love and thereby
truly purified!
If we listen attentively to the
Gospel, we can discern two different
dimensions in the event of the
washing of the feet. The cleansing
that Jesus offers his disciples
is first and foremost simply his
action - the gift of purity, of
the capacity for God that
is offered to them. But the gift
then becomes a model, the duty
to do the same for one another.
The Fathers have described these
two aspects of the washing of
the feet with the words sacramentum
and exemplum. Sacramentum in this
context does not mean one of the
seven sacraments but the mystery
of Christ in its entirety, from
the Incarnation to the Cross and
the Resurrection: all of this
becomes the healing and sanctifying
power, the transforming force
for men and women, it becomes
our metabasis, our transformation
into a new form of being, into
openness for God and communion
with him. But this new being which,
without our merit, he simply gives
to us must then be transformed
within us into the dynamic of
a new life. The gift and example
overall, which we find in the passage on the washing of the feet, is a characteristic of the
nature of Christianity in general.
Christianity is not a type of
moralism, simply a system of ethics.
It does not originate in our action,
our moral capacity. Christianity
is first and foremost a gift:
God gives himself to us - he does
not give something, but himself.
And this does not only happen
at the beginning, at the moment
of our conversion. He constantly
remains the One who gives. He
continually offers us his gifts.
He always precedes us. This is
why the central act of Christian
being is the Eucharist: gratitude
for having been gratified, joy
for the new life that he gives
us.
Yet with this, we do not remain
passive recipients of divine goodness.
God gratifies us as personal,
living partners. Love given is
the dynamic of loving together,
it wants to be new life in us
starting from God. Thus, we understand
the words which, at the end of
the washing of the feet, Jesus
addresses to his disciples and
to us all: "A new commandment
I give to you, that you love one
another; even as I have loved
you, that you also love one another" (John
13:34). The new commandment does
not consist in a new and difficult
norm that did not exist until
then. The new thing is the gift
that introduces us into Christ's
mentality. If we consider this,
we perceive how far our lives
often are from this newness of
the New Testament and how little
we give humanity the example of
loving in communion with his love.
Thus, we remain indebted to the
proof of credibility of the Christian
truth which is revealed in love.
For this very reason we want to
pray to the Lord increasingly
to make us, through his purification,
mature persons of the new commandment.
In the Gospel of the washing of
the feet, Jesus' conversation
with Peter presents to us yet
another detail of the praxis of
Christian life to which we would
like finally to turn our attention.
At first, Peter did not want to
let the Lord wash his feet: this
reversal of order, that is, that
the master - Jesus - should wash
feet, that the master should carry
out the slave's service, contrasted
starkly with his reverential respect
for Jesus, with his concept of
the relationship between the teacher
and the disciple. You shall
never wash my feet, he said
to Jesus with his usual impetuosity
(John 13:8). His concept of the
Messiah involved an image of majesty,
of divine grandeur. He had to
learn repeatedly that God's greatness
is different from our idea of
greatness; that it consists precisely
in stooping low, in the humility
of service, in the radicalism
of love even to total self-emptying.
And we too must learn it anew
because we systematically desire
a God of success and not of the
Passion; because we are unable
to realize that the Pastor comes
as a Lamb that gives itself and
thus leads us to the right pasture.
When the Lord tells Peter that
without the washing of the feet
he would not be able to have any
part in him, Peter immediately
asks impetuously that his head
and hands be washed. This is followed
by Jesus' mysterious saying: "He
who has bathed does not need to
wash, except for his feet" (John
13:10). Jesus was alluding to
a cleansing with which the disciples
had already complied; for their
participation in the banquet,
only the washing of their feet
was now required. But of course
this conceals a more profound
meaning. What
was Jesus alluding to? We do not
know for certain. In any case,
let us bear in mind that the washing
of the feet, in accordance with
the meaning of the whole chapter,
does not point to any single specific
sacrament but the sacramentum
Christi in its entirety - his
service of salvation, his descent
even to the Cross, his love to
the end that purifies us and makes
us capable of God. Yet
here, with the distinction between
bathing and the washing of the
feet, an allusion to life in the
community of the disciples also
becomes perceptible, an allusion
to the life of the Church. It
then seems clear that the bathing
that purifies us once and for
all and must not be repeated is
Baptism - being immersed in the
death and Resurrection of Christ,
a fact that profoundly changes
our life, giving us as it were
a new identity that lasts, if
we do not reject it as Judas did.
However, even in the permanence
of this new identity, given by
Baptism, for convivial communion
with Jesus we need the washing
of the feet. What does this
involve? It seems to me that the
First Letter of St John gives
us the key to understanding it.
In it we read: "If we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just, and will forgive our
sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1:8ff). We are in need of the washing
of the feet, the cleansing
of our daily sins, and for this
reason we need to confess our
sins as St John spoke of in this
Letter. We have to recognize that
we sin, even in our new identity
as baptized persons. We need confession
in the form it has taken in the
Sacrament of Reconciliation. In
it the Lord washes our dirty feet
ever anew and we can be seated
at table with him.
But in this way the word with
which the Lord extends the sacramentum,
making it the exemplum, a gift,
a service for one's brother, also
acquires new meaning: "If
I then, your Lord and Teacher,
have washed your feet, you also
ought to wash one another's feet" (John
13:14). We must wash one another's
feet in the mutual daily service
of love. But we must also wash
one another's feet in the sense
that we must forgive one another
ever anew. The debt for which
the Lord has pardoned us is always
infinitely greater than all the
debts that others can owe us (cf.
Matthew 18:21-35). Holy Thursday exhorts
us to this: not to allow resentment
toward others to become a poison
in the depths of the soul. It
urges us to purify our memory
constantly, forgiving one another
whole-heartedly, washing one another's
feet, to be able to go to God's
banquet together.
Holy Thursday is a day of gratitude
and joy for the great gift of
love to the end that the Lord
has made to us. Let us pray to
the Lord at this hour, so that
gratitude and joy may become in
us the power to love together
with his love. Amen. |
Like I said earlier:
On a night that is ideal for talking
about and calling from the
pew for new vocations to the
priesthood, many priests instead
focus on the priesthood of the baptized.
In doing so, and in allowing the
washing of women's feet, pastors
and priests can mistakenly, without
intent,
be sending an incorrect, doctrinal
error, that women can become
priests.
For anyone interested, here's how
I would handle these situations from
a priest's view:
- Question:
- Father, why are only men having
their feet washed this Thursday?
Aren't you being a male chauvinist
pig, discriminating against
the hard working women of our
parish?
Answer:- The sacrament of Holy Orders
which we celebrate on Holy Thursday
has nothing to do with being a
male chauvinist pig or discriminating
against the hard working women
of our parish.
- Do I, as a man, have any
right to complain to the Church
or to God, that I can't get
pregnant?
- Do I, as a man, have any right
to complain to the Church or
to God, that there are certain
physical features women have,
that I can't have?
Of course not. The issue has
to do with
functions and roles,
not respect or
any perceived lack
of respect.
I heard someone else put it this
way:
I think other religions equate
a lack of authority with a
lack of respect.
| Catholicism respects women
in a way that is different
from what we typically see
as respect. In other words,
we, the culture, tend to assume
that if a woman is not allowed
to do something, it is because
she is not respected. |
This person is correct. The primary
feminist in the Catholic Church
throughout the ages has been Our
Blessed Mother. If Jesus was showing
a lack of respect to women when he
instituted the priesthood, he
would have also been disrespecting
his own Mother and, in doing so,
breaking the fourth commandment
to honor thy father and mother.
There is no other human person
in the Church that is held in
the highest respect than the Our
Lady and she obviously was never
a ministerial priest.
- Question:
- But your practice does not make
me feel at home or welcome in
the Church?
Answer:-
The Church wasn't primarily established
by Our Lord to make people
feel good.
It does strive to make people
feel fulfilled and happy in their
special calling in the Church
but nowhere in the Gospel or
the Epistles will you find a case
for the primary necessity of making
the faithful feel good.
We are called to deepen our understanding
of faith through study.
When we combine our informed Catholic
understanding of the faith with
our specific calling within the
Church, we are a powerful presence
of the Lord to the world.
So to summarize what I've said, Yes, men's feet should only be washing because the Church celebrates
the institution of the priesthood on Holy Thursday but either custom could be practiced, because we also acknowledge universal priesthood of baptized believers in the faith.
That said, it would be pastorally
prudent to wash only men's feet,
otherwise it may signal, incorrectly
to women parishioners in the pews,
that women can become priests.
Hope this helps,
Mike
|
