Pope Francis washes feet of 12 people with illnesses and disabilities

As with last year's Easter celebrations, Pope Francis yesterday chose to celebrate the Mass of Our Lord's Supper among the marginalised.

During his first Easter as pontiff last year, he visited a youth detention centre, while yesterday evening he went to the Don Gnocchi nursing home at Casal Del Marmo on the outskirts of Rome.

Maundy Thursday Mass is marked by the mandatum, or the washing of the feet of 12 people, in memory of how Christ washed the feet of the 12 apostles before the Last Supper.

Male and female patients
Yesterday Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 male and female patients. They included an 86-year-old and a 16-year-old, Christians and Muslims, all of them suffering from serious illnesses or disabilities ranging from cerebral palsy and paralysis to brain damage and Down syndrome.

Almost all previous popes celebrated the mandatum by washing the feet of seminary students in a service at the Vatican. However, while archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis went down another path, washing male and female feet in Argentinian jails, hospitals and old people’s homes.

As the pope prepares for the most important moment in the church calendar, he continues to do things his way. During Wednesday’s public audience in St Peter’s Square, he alighted from his popemobile to greet a group of schoolchildren from Perugia, before taking two of them for a quick spin around the square.

This year's Easter Sunday, with its traditional "Urbi et Orbi" papal greeting, also marks the beginning of a week of preparation for the April 27th canonisation of popes John XXIII and John Paul II.

As many as two million pilgrims are expected in Rome over the 10-day Easter and canonisation period.