As the idea of such passion week celebrations spread to other areas, various local rites and customs were incorporated into the Maundy Thursday celebration. Doubtless the best-known of these customs is foot washing, an old monastic exercise inspired by Christ’s example in the upper room and associated with the “new commandment” of love recorded in John 14 (hence the familiar name Maundy Thursday, “maundy” being an English corruption, via French, of the Latin mandatum: “commandment”).
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Farewell Megan