Originally published at National Catholic Register
Latin sung over nervous giggles and the intermittent sound of trickling water filled the small room attached to the 16th-century Church of the Most Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims on a mild March evening in Rome.
Here, members of a centuries-old Catholic fraternity welcomed a group of Australian teens, in Rome for a Jubilee pilgrimage, with the same gesture once performed by the great saint of charity, St. Philip Neri, and his collaborators nearly 500 years ago: washing their feet.
The practice, with its deep spiritual symbolism, is one of several ways Catholics in Rome — drawing inspiration from the medieval history of the city — are welcoming the many pilgrims taking part in the Jubilee of Hope in 2025.
Washing Pilgrims’ Feet
Shortly after St. Philip Neri’s charitable lay group, the Confraternity of the Most Holy Trinity of Pilgrims and Convalescents, was officially recognized, the Catholic Church celebrated the Jubilee Year of 1550.
Neri, called the “Third Apostle of Rome” for his evangelization of the Eternal City, saw the throngs of pilgrims arriving for the jubilee year and wanted to do something.
“In Rome at that time, pilgrims arrived on foot or on horseback, so … many
