Help! PPC Washing Hands on Holy Thursday

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ServentsOf_Mary

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This story is 5 years old for me.
Our parish began substituting washing of Hands for washing feet on Holy Thursday (about 20 years now). I have been petitioning PPC every year about this time during lent. I have told them that we do not have the right to change rituals in the Church. I have told them we are in error. The Priest is stubborn on this and will not change.

I do not attend our washing of hands on Holy Thursday, but it drives me crazy every year. Holy Spirit prompting? Perhaps. Tonight at PPC the Priest knew that I was (again) in opposition to the event. Several people talked about how emotional this makes them when all the children take part in washing hands. How meaningful it was when the ladies did it in the Renewal. During the meeting I was praying the Rosary. When they started discussing the issue, I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. (Grown man without these kinds of issues)

I feel that I should write the Bishop. Am I in error? Should I try to forget it?
 
Is the PPC your parish council? I know of no Biblical reference to washing of hands, but of Christ the servant washing the feet of his disciples. Washing of hands makes me think of this -
The idiom to wash one’s hands of something is derived from a story concerning Pontius Pilate , prefect of Judaea at the time of Jesus’ trial. At the urging of the Sanhedrin, Pilate condemned Jesus to death, but not before he washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.”
 
PPC is Parish Pastoral Council. They are advisory to the Priest.
 
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My POV is that you should just stay away. I have a slight form of PTSD with symptoms of hypervigilance - some things just drive me nuts, even though it’s Catholics in church at Mass.

I don’t like this either. The gospel account of the washing of feet has to do at the first level with Christ assuming the low position of a slave or servant. There’s also, and I could be wrong here, a cultural issue with not showing people the bottom of one’s feet – very insulting. So, as is the case so often in the gospels, the significance of things is not immediately obvious.

I suppose washing hands is the simplified version of the gospel story, just to give the kids something to do, something to participate in.

A relative of mine went to Peru on a tour. She brought back a Catholic souvenir of the Last
Supper, showing the passover animal as a guinea pig instead of a lamb, because that’s what they have there, not lambs. So…cultural adaptation “happens.” If you don’t like it, stay away. Hopefully when the kids grow up they will learn the actual gospel story and live with it.
 
I’ve been to many Churches than leaned more liturgically liberal and I have never seen one use washing of the hands instead of the feet. Seems pretty strange.

If you have really tried talking to your Pastor about it and gotten no where maybe it is time to write the Bishop.
 
c1949 said:
A relative of mine went to Peru on a tour. She brought back a Catholic souvenir of the Last
Supper, showing the passover animal as a guinea pig instead of a lamb, because that’s what they have there, not lambs.
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I wonder why they do that. It’s not as if there were no sheep in Peru. There are millions of them.

Mixed livestock systems involving sheep, camelids and cattle are common in the central Peruvian Andes, sheep are the most important livestock economically. The central Andes include 5.2 million hectares of pasture and 4.6 million sheep.

 
I’m not doubting your word, nor your relative’s word. I’m quite literally just wondering what the origin of that Peruvian custom might be, since there doesn’t seem to be a material reason why they would be unfamiliar with lamb.
 
I don’t have the slightest idea. I think it might have to do with the poverty of the people, who might not be wealthy enough to have lands and large flocks of sheep. So, the Last Supper is depicted “down to” their comfort zone.
 
Or possibly a cultural borrowing from the pre-Christian religion of the Incas? Did they perhaps sacrifice guinea pigs to their gods? I would guess sheep were unknown in South America before the Europeans arrived, along with horses and other domestic animals.
 
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There is a famous religious picture in Lima, IIRC, that has the guinea pig in it. The friend’s picture is probably a copy.

Olden days Peru did a lot of “modern” enculturation, like pictures of angels carrying flintlocks or arquebuses.

Anyhoo, the point of Jesus washing feet was that he was doing what Moses did to Aaron and his sons when they were made priests, and what priests did every day before serving in the Temple, entering onto holy ground. When Peter got upset about it looking like a servant job, that was when Jesus pointed out that important people in the Kingdom do service. But the priest thing was what it was about.

There were nonliturgical Christian uses of washing feet, but it was usually “Bob the abbot washes the feet of the newbie and geezer monks” or “King Jeff washes the feet of twelve random beggars, before giving them a nice meal, a new set of clothes and shoes, and a bag of gold.” Or it might be the abbess or the queen, doing it for her nuns or some female beggars.

Otherwise, it was just a thing where the bishop washes the feet of twelve priests.
 
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BartholomewB said:
I’m not doubting your word, nor your relative’s word. I’m quite literally just wondering what the origin of that Peruvian custom might be, since there doesn’t seem to be a material reason why they would be unfamiliar with lamb.
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Because Guinea pig is special, more special than lamb in the Peruvian diet. Personally, I like them as pets, not dinner.
 
Looked it up. It hangs in Cuzco’s Cathedral, and it was painted in 1754 by a Quechua man whose Spanish name was Marcos Zapata. (His other name was Sapaca Inca.)

So yeah, at that point it would have been easier for native peoples in Peru to know about guinea pigs than about sheep. And yes, it was used for sacrifices. The wine in that painting is actually chicha, which is fermented corn/maize. So pretty daring, but they let him try it.

Most of his stuff is more standard in.symbolism. Very beautiful.
 
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Okayyyy. Apparently the Peru folks say it is actually a wild chinchilla on the plate, a specific kind called a viszacha. And that is why it is so long and skinny.

It is also called viscacha.
 
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To the OP: consult your bishop. Abide by his answer, whatever it is.
 
I’ve only ever seen live guinea pigs. I never saw one cooked and served on the dining table. Never seen a chincilla, either.
 
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