This Passion Week, men will wash their wives’ feet. The Indian Christian Women’s Movement (ICWM), Kerala Chapter, a movement comprising women of all Christian denominations, is organising their own washing the feet ceremony.
They will hold the ceremony on Wednesday, March 28, instead of Maundy Thursday, when it will be enacted in churches. “We have invited 12 couples for the ceremony at Navajeevan Trust, Villoonni, near here,” said Kochurani Abraham, convener of the Kerala Chapter.
Guest workers too
They are also planning to invite guest labourers for the ceremony. “They serve us in all areas now, whether in agriculture, construction, or factories,” she said. “We have to show them that we respect them and serve them at least symbolically,” Ms. Abraham said.
“We are convinced that this ritual was a means of taking the message of forgiveness, acceptance and mutual care outside the boundaries of the ritual worship of the Church,” Ms. Abraham said. Hence the decision to hold the ritual at Navajeevan Trust, a home for the destitute. They will also hold similar rituals at Abhaya Bhavan at Thiruvalla and Mercy Home in Kochi the same day, she said.
Last year’s ceremony
The activists, who had joined hands last year under the banner Women’s Lives Matter (WLM) had attracted attention by organising their own washing the feet ceremony. Last year, they had washed the feet of 12 residents of Santhwanam, a centre for battered women and children .
The centuries-old Christian ritual had been part of Holy Week, in memory of the incident in which, as per the Bible, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples after the Last Supper and asked to do as he had done for them. Traditionally, ecclesiastic heads wash the feet of 12 baptised boys or men at the ceremony.
Pope’s fiat
However, the ritual had emerged as a focus of attention recently when Pope Francis included people from all walks of life (“all people of God”) in the ceremony. This change was made public through a document in 2016. However, the Syro-Malabar Church had taken the stance that they would stick to tradition like other Churches following the Syriac rite. The women activists have termed the Pope’s vision ‘inclusion liturgy’ and believe that this would go a long way in correcting the ways of the Church which has been “increasingly marginalising women.”
