Before washing the feet of 12 prisoners, Pope Francis told them and hundreds of inmates to remember that Jesus constantly stands before them with love, ready to cleanse their sins and forgive them.
“Jesus takes a risk on each of us. Know this: Jesus is called Jesus, not Pontius Pilate. Jesus does not know how to wash his hands of us; he only knows how to take a risk on us,” the Pope said during his homily at Rome’s Regina Coeli prison.
Pope Francis celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the prison and washed the feet of a dozen inmates. Four were Italian; two were from the Philippines; two from Morocco; and one each from Moldova, Colombia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the Vatican press office said.
Eight of the 12 were Catholic; two were Muslim; one was Orthodox; and one was Buddhist.
In his brief homily before the foot-washing ritual, Pope Francis explained to the prisoners that in Jesus’ day, the job of washing feet was the task of a slave. “There wasn’t asphalt or cobblestones, there was dust and people’s feet got dirty,” so before they went into a house, the slaves would wash the person’s feet.
The Gospel recounts Jesus washing the feet of his own disciples “to give us an example of how we must serve one another”, the Pope said.
Another time, he said, Jesus explained to his disciples that kings want to be served.
“Think of the kings and emperors back then, so many were cruel, they insisted on being served by slaves,” the Pope said.
“Among you, it must not be like this. The one who rules must serve.”