Foot Washing at a Catholic Wedding

[maryjk]

I guess I just do not want to know what is going to result when this practice goes the way that cutting the cake already has…that is, what is the foot-washing equivalent of “playfully” pushing cake into your brand new spouse’s face?

(Remember: Cutting the cake started as a “serve each other and others together” ritual, too.)

I remember when my husband and I got married. Someone attending, yelled, “get him.”

We have a couple of very nice pictures of us gently feeding each other. It spoke of our future of taking care of each other. After 20 years we have gently taken care of each other plenty of times.

I cringe when I see a new wedded couple shoving cake into each others face. How long do you think it will take for water to be everywhere because some couple thinks it is funny to splash it everywhere?

 

[EasterJoy]

I remember when my husband and I got married. Someone attending, yelled, “get him.”

We have a couple of very nice pictures of us gently feeding each other. It spoke of our future of taking care of each other. After 20 years we have gently taken care of each other plenty of times.

I cringe when I see a new wedded couple shoving cake into each others face. How long do you think it will take for water to be everywhere because some couple thinks it is funny to splash it everywhere?

I do not mean to be such a curmudgeon, but the current trend at receptions does not make me an optimist when it comes to innovations. The thirst for novelty as a way of asserting “uniqueness” soon runs out of the modest means of expression.

 

[jpink1019]

I kind of feel as though some of the answers posted here are a little cynical.
Foot washing is not as typical as serving each other cake and in a christian wedding reception for the husband to surprise his wife with a humbling gesture is unusual and touching, i feel.
The foot washing doesn’t even have to go to extremes.
It could be as long as a couple minutes. One of the weddings i have been to the husband
merely dipped his wife’s feet in clean water and dried them off.
It was the tenderness that he had for his wife that showed through in the way he washed her feet.
This isn’t to compare to what Christ did, nor to what priests do.
It is to represent the command that the husband is to love and serve his wife as Christ does the church.

 

[monicatholic]

Jpink, in your description, only the husband washes his wife’s feet. Not reversed. Somehow this IS more in keeping with pauline admonition that husbands are the head of his wife, like Christ is the head of the church, giving his life for her.

Still, the Liturgy is complete and holy without misplaced inventions.

But something else occurs to me. A Catholic couple who has practiced premarital chastity seems VERY unlikely to feel comfortable participating in a public display of inter-gender intimacy such as this.

 

[PatriceA]

Jpink, in your description, only the husband washes his wife’s feet. Not reversed. Somehow this IS more in keeping with pauline admonition that husbands are the head of his wife, like Christ is the head of the church, giving his life for her.

Still, the Liturgy is complete and holy without misplaced inventions.

But something else occurs to me. A Catholic couple who has practiced premarital chastity seems VERY unlikely to feel comfortable participating in a public display of inter-gender intimacy such as this.

This is why I would have felt uncomfortable at my wedding if this practice had been an option. Seems too intimate of a gesture to share with others at a wedding reception. It feels to me more like something that should be shared between couples within the privacy of their own home.