"Don't Go Washing No Women's Feet"

The work of Tim Ferguson, (mantilla/t to Fr Z.)

An antiphon for Maundy Thursday (you must imagine Patty, Maxine and Laverne in cassock and surplice, producing their own distinctive brand of organum.)

Don’t go washing those women’s feet; the Latin is plain to me:
“selecti” should be “viri.” The rubrics are clear you see. No, no, no,
Don’t go washing those women’s feet at Thursday night’s liturgy,
Thus says the Pope of Rome.

Don’t go altering rubrics now, no matter who you may be,
Or where you got your degree in Scripture and Liturgy. No, no, no,
Don’t go altering rubrics now, this calls for humility:
You’re not the Pope of Rome.

I just got word that Ranjith has heard,
‘n put the Vicar in a jam,
Seems some priest here, washing feet last year,
Scrubbed a nylon-covered gam.
So, don’t go washing those women’s feet at Thursday night’s liturgy,
Or feel the wrath of Rome.

*This being Lent, I should make a full confession. 1) I don't actually wear a mantilla, and 2) at my parish we do indeed wash women's feet. Women NOT d'un certain age never seem to understand that since they will be sitting on a raised platform with an older gentleman kneeling in front of them and with a vast audience whose eyeline is at their, to put it delicately, seat-level, some thought should be given to their rainment -- pants, perhaps? or a skirt that comes at least to the bottom of the knee?