It is that day of the year when the current Vicar of Christ on earth does before 12 persons what he chooses not ever to do in front of Christ in the Eucharist and in the Blessed Sacrament - kneel! Yes, on this day, he is miraculously able to kneel 12 times in succession and bend for a ritual footwashing and footdrying that ends with a reverent kiss on the washed foot.
Of course, that gesture is far more telegenic and attention-grabbing than 'merely' genuflecting during the Consecration or kneeling when in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. After all more than 400,000 priests and more than 5,000 bishops around the world do the latter every day, which is, of course, no reason for the pope to exempt himself from the ritual gestures of veneration and adoration for the Lord...
And yes, we know the drill: he is really serving Jesus and God in the footwashing ritual - in which every person whose foot he washes represents the suffering Christ himself, so why should I quibble that he fails to genuflect when consecrating the Body and Blood of Christ or does not kneel before the Blessed Sacrament? [Unless, of course, he feels that as the Vicar of Christ on earth, he need not show the traditional gestures of veneration and adoration to the Lord he 'represents']... Fr H has some reflections on Bergoglio's idiosyncratic inculturation of the Maundy Thursday ritual.
Pedilavium or footwashing:
Such a wealth of different meanings
The meaning of this rite, in the intention of
the current pope, has been changed
April 13, 2017
Let me explain.
HISTORY
(1) The sense which the Pedilavium appears (not invariably but) most commonly to have had in the pre-modern period was of humble service done by a superior (Bishop, Abbot)
before his own subjects, and in the intimacy of their own close fellowship. Among the feet which Father Abbot washed were those of the young monk whom, perhaps, he had needed yesterday to discipline. His Lordship the Bishop did the same for a presbyter with whom - forfend the thought! - he may have had a less than cordial relationship. Perhaps an equivalent would be Papa Bergoglio washing the feet of curial cardinals including those who had disagreed with him or even presented him with unwanted Dubia!
The Lord did not, as people sometimes carelessly assert, "wash the feet of his disciples", who were many; He washed the feet of a much more limited group, the Twelve.
He did not wash the feet of the people who flocked to hear Him teach in the fields or on the Mountain or beside the Lake or in the village square, or even the feet of the Seventy He sent forth or of the women who ministered to Him; when He washed the feet of the Twelve, it was behind the closed doors of an exclusive Meeting arranged in almost 007-style secrecy. And the implication of St Peter's words was that this had not been the Lord's regular custom.
Washing the feet of a person with whom one has no relationship, no daily fellowship whether for better or for worse, empties the rite of this, historically (I think) its first, meaning. Unless a different meaning is devised, it becomes an empty, formalistic, ritual.
(2) A second meaning of some historic pedilavium ceremonies has been
both the humility and the generosity of the great and the grand towards their social inferiors. Holy Condescension. This is the meaning which the rite had when it was used by sovereigns and by some up-market bishops. Food, clothing, money would often be distributed. In the twentieth century, British monarchs restored the rite in this sense, but did not revive the actual footwashing. Specially minted pieces of archaic coinage are distributed. True, the Lord High Almoner still girds himself with a towel, but that is only because this is the sort of thing which the English, a strange race, deem to be 'tradition'.
Meanings (1) and (2) both rest upon presuppositions of status and hierarchy. These are concepts now rather out of vogue. Perhaps that is why the Holy Father has dreamed up a new and completely different understanding of the rite –
inculturating it, so to speak, into post-modernity.
(3) This different and new meaning which Papa Bergoglio now wishes to attach to the rite is
the boundless love and Mercy of God to all, and not least to those on the peripheries of Society.
This removes any overlaps with meanings (1) and (2) (and it is very far from what the closed and exclusive intimacy of the Last Supper suggests that the Lord had in mind). But, as long as we all understand that this new meaning has nothing whatsoever to do with St John's Last Supper narrative or the Church's ancient liturgical tradition, it seems to me a perfectly reasonable Acted Parable for an innovative liturgist to dream up. No harm in a bit of imagination!!
The Pedilavium as part of the Mass of the Last Supper is, in historical terms,
a very recent and completely optional importation into the Liturgy of a ceremony which (where it was done at all) used to be extra-liturgical and took varying forms. Accordingly, I cannot see why any Roman Pontiff, or, for that matter, any junior curate, should not be entitled to juggle around with it, and to give it whatever new meaning or meanings he chooses to suit his own specific social context.
Whether Maundy Thursday, a congested Day on which liturgically quite a lot already happens, is the most apt time for such performances, I very much doubt. Here, I have a constructive suggestion to make...
A RIGID RESTRICTION?
What puzzles me is
not that Pope Francis has opted for meaning (3). This is very much in character.
What I do find so incomprehensibly strange is the new restriction he has has himself placed on those whose feet are washed, i.e. his demand that they must be Christians. [As he wrote to Cardinal Sarah:
"I have reached the decision ... I order that ... from among all the members of the People of God".]
[Except, Fr. H, that the pope issued the new decree on 1/6/16, and then on March 24, 2016, which was the first Maundy Thursday of its application, at a reception center housing some 900 refugees outside Rome, “he washed the feet of 11 migrants and one volunteer. Of the migrants, four were Catholic youths from Nigeria, three were Coptic women from Eritrea, three were Muslims, and one was a Hindu youth from India. ”
So he promptly broke with his own new rule. Obviously, however, Bergoglio does not understand the phrase ‘People of God’ as referring to Christians only but to all men. But while all human beings are creatures of God – created by him – not all are necessarily ‘people of God’. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very specific about the characteristics of ‘the People of God’, and one would expect the reigning pope to know this:
Characteristics of the People of God
782 The People of God is marked by characteristics that clearly distinguish it from all other religious, ethnic, political, or cultural groups found in history:
- It is the People of God: God is not the property of any one people. But he acquired a people for himself from those who previously were not a people: "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation."
- One becomes a member of this people not by a physical birth, but by being "born anew," a birth "of water and the Spirit," that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.
- This People has for its Head Jesus the Christ (the anointed, the Messiah). Because the same anointing, the Holy Spirit, flows from the head into the body, this is "the messianic people."
- "The status of this people is that of the dignity and freedom of the sons of God, in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple."
- "Its law is the new commandment to love as Christ loved us." This is the "new" law of the Holy Spirit.
- Its mission is to be salt of the earth and light of the world. This people is "a most sure seed of unity, hope, and salvation for the whole human race."
- Its destiny, finally, "is the Kingdom of God which has been begun by God himself on earth and which must be further extended until it has been brought to perfection by him at the end of time."
[Below, I will post what Vatican-II said about ‘the People of God’ and how the term came to be abused afterwards.]*
This was not previously the rule. Francis has in the past, for example, according to reports, himself washed Moslem feet. And the new restriction seems to me to go directly against the Pope's declared preferred meaning (3). There seems to be something of a self-contradiction here ... perhaps making it emblematic of this pontificate! [So, no, Fr H, in washing the feet of non-Christians even after his decree about limiting this to ‘the People of God’, Bergoglio was being consistent with his commendable goal not to discriminate against any human being for whatever reason -regardless of what the Church teaches about the use of the phrase ‘the People of God’. Perhaps he really ought to commission a Catechism for the church of Bergoglio incorporating his most cherished notions, many of which are anti-Catholic.]
Wouldn't it be more congruous for those symbolically served in this way to represent the entire Human Community without restricting the rite to the Baptised, indeed, without any restrictions? Should it not be open to persons of all religions and none? Dr Dawkins and the Dalai Lama? And Mass-murderers? Rapists and Paedophiles? Victims of ecclesiastical malevolent prejudice such as the Franciscans of the Immaculate? ISIS Suicide Bombers, Neo-Pelagian butterflies, and even Journalists? The Ku Klux Klan and the Cosa nostra? Quot homines tot peripheriae. [All those people on the peripheries!] [Been there, done most of that! Speaking of Cosa nostra, the pope did his footwashing this year at a maximum-security prison in which 50 out of 60 inmates are Mafia turncoats. Perhaps next year, the pope will wash the feet of 12 convicted sex-offender priests. But no women 'washees' this time – performing the pedilavium on women was really the principal feature of the January 2016 Bergoglian decree on footwashing – issued 3 years and 10 months since he started doing as pope all the things he belatedly decreed.]]
A MODEST PROPOSAL
Perhaps, indeed, Papa Bergoglio's new rite could be adopted in exchange for a custom, invented, I believe, by the late Herr Hitler and now rather boringly out of date: hugging babies with 'celebrity' ostentation. This has had its day: we need a substitute. And the Sovereign Pontiff has opportunely hit upon the makings of one.
How might his intuitions be worked up and given a formal shape? What about this:
While being driven round and round the Piazza di San Pietro, the Pope could suddenly leap sylph-like from his popemobile. His security guards would then drag out of the cheering crowd the selected individual and liberate her from her shoes and tights. The ever-faithful, ever-efficient Guido 'Jeeves' Marini would appear ex nihilo, magically, imperturbably, at his Master's side with basin, water and towel. The People's Pontiff could then take it from there.
This would have a wealth of meaning, a real profundity. It would, for example, remind the impenitent that the Eschaton, the Day of Wrath and Doom Impending, could happen unexpectedly, at any moment.
Trade would boom for Roman pedicurists.
*
What Vatican II said about ‘the People of God’
The dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium devoted its chapter II to "the new People of God", "a people made up of Jew and gentile", called together by Christ (section 9). I
- It spoke of "the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh" as among those who "are related in various ways to the people of God" (section 16).
- It described in detail the qualities of this People of God in words "intended for the laity, religious and clergy alike" (section 30), while also pointing out the specific duties and functions of the different ranks of which it is composed, such as that of "those who exercise the sacred ministry for the good of their brethren" (section 13).
In 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was to become in 2005 Pope Benedict XVI, stated that the Council's choice of this term reflected three perspectives.:
- The principal one was to introduce a term that could serve as an ecumenical bridge, recognizing intermediate degrees of belonging to the Church.
- Another was to put more in evidence the human element in the Church, which is also part of her nature.
- And the third was to recall that the Church has not yet reached her final state and that she "will not be wholly herself until the paths of time have been traversed and have blossomed in the hands of God".[
Cardinal Ratzinger also declared that the term is not to be understood in way that would reduce it "to an a-theological and purely sociological view" of the Church.
Michael Hesemann wrote:
After the Council, the expression was taken up enthusiastically, but in a way that neither Ratzinger nor the Council Fathers had intended. Suddenly it became a slogan: "We are the People!" The idea of a "Church from below" developed; its proponents wanted to engage in polemics against those who held office and o carry out their agenda by democratic majority vote.
Although the theological, biblical concept of people was still the idea of a natural hierarchy, of a great family, suddenly it was reinterpreted in a Marxist sense, in which "people" is always considered the antithesis to the ruling classes. The centre of the Christian faith, however, can only be God's revelation, which cannot be put to a ballot. Church means being called by God. Joseph Ratzinger said: “The crisis concerning the Church, as it is reflected in the crisis concerning the concept ‘People of God’, is a ‘crisis about God’ - it is the result of leaving out what is most essential.”
- From Wikipedia, appropriately sourced references
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2017 20:28]