Holy Foot-Washing, Jesus!

Ten years ago I was a candidate, one of the adults to be confirmed at the Easter vigil, and I was to have my feet washed on Holy Thursday. This ritual is a commemoration of Jesus' washing of the apostles’ feet before his final Passover meal, the night of the Last Supper.

We, the catechumens and candidates, were told to wear easily removable shoes so we could quickly free our feet for the washing. A priest would be pouring rose-petaled water on our toes. Sometimes, Sister Ruth told us, the feet are kissed after being washed.

Whoa.

I thought of my crusty, rough-skinned feet—closer to hooves, really, the overgrown nails, callouses, corns, and other unnameable vegetables growing down under, wondering if I could stand to expose such horrors to a pedicurist so that I wouldn’t create an ordeal for whoever was to bear the unlucky chore of having to view, much less touch, my feet.

This was a dilemma for several of us candidates (the women, at least). We each seemed sure that our feet were the worst looking specimens of human flesh on God’s green earth, and we carefully planned our own personal cures: an extra-special pedicure at a nail salon, witch hazel and wax, fungal ointments, that Dead-Sea mud that folks use for facials, minty foot creams. My choice: a salty soak and pumice-stone scrub followed by a vaselined self-massage of both feet and light cotton socks worn all night. The finisher: a spritz of Calvin Klein Eternity perfume on my sandaled toes just before heading out to Holy Thursday Mass. If my feet were not ravishing, at least they would be made kissable by smelling like Eternity.

So it was with silently chuckling chagrin that I listened to Father Eddie's reflection about the ceremonial washing of the feet. He compared the water pouring on the feet to the Living Water of the Spirit, flowing through and quenching all the dry places in our soul that harbor shame – the memories, sins, wounds, and secrets that we want no one to see or to touch.

My carefully scrubbed and oil-softened feet were now so presentable – fuchsia toe-nail polish to boot – that they could no longer candidly represent my inner woundedness and shame. Still, the tenderness of that kiss on my foot felt like a blessing breaking through the vanity that had finally driven me – thank God! -- to treat my own woebegone tootsies with great care.

Okay: I know this isn't the most profound example of how grace can paradoxically tease out healing and blessing from shame and untouchability. But it works for me.