Ceremony of Love

On Maundy Thursday, at Rome's St. John Lateran Cathedral, Pope Paul VI ceremoniously washed and then kissed the feet of twelve Roman Catholic seminarians. It was a symbolic re-enactment of the Last Supper, at which Jesus, according to John, washed the feet of the Twelve Apostles as a sign that he was both the servant and Lord of mankind. The ritual, which was devised in medieval times, is carried out once a year at major cathedrals. In Rome, however, it was dropped at the death of Pope Pius IX in 1878; John XXIII revived the custom in 1959, and it has been performed in the Eternal City ever since.

There was the customary international flavor to this year's ceremony. Pope Paul chose twelve students from the underdeveloped "third world," at tending Rome's Pontifical Urban University, to share in the ritual. One seminarian was from North Viet Nam, another from South Korea; four were Africans. Afterward, in a ten-minute sermon, the Pope spoke of the universal need for fraternity. "A new current of love must turn enemies into friends, strangers into brothers," he said. "Love is still shrunken and confined in side borders of customs, interests and selfishness which must be widened. Love is the distinguishing sign of the authentic Christian."

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