Holy Thursday is also called Maundy Thursday, from the Latin for "commandment", mandatum. As an example of the "new commandment" to love one another, John's Gospel describes Jesus at the Last Supper, getting down and doing a servant or slave's job and washing the feet of the apostles.
In England, the monarch used to do it. It later developed into a more elaborate alms-giving ritual. Despite their theological difference, both Mary Tudor and Elizabeth Tudor did it, giving money, food, and some of their own clothing to poor women as part of the ceremony. However, since the poor rarely cooperate with the fantasies of their benefactors, the rite was discontinued because the women started fighting over the gowns, bartering with each other for better ones and trying them on right in the church.
In some Protestant sects, it became a regular practice. You can wonder why it never became one of the sacraments.
When I have imagined a Christian ritual for same-sex unions, even for regular traditional marriage, it struck me as a powerful symbol of what the heart of life-long mating is about.
*I was once the victim of a reformed and renewed ceremony. The priest decided that it would be nice to add a blessing and a prayer for each person he washed. He prayed, extemporaneously of course, and at length, during and after the washing. Part of the power of the traditional rite is that while the choir and congregation sing, the priest kneels down on the floor and washes and dries the feet in silence. No talking. Part of his humility is that, for once, he shuts up. This very groovy priest was clearly intruding his ego into the service under the power of some sort of spiritual inflation. I wanted to take the foot he washed and kick him.
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