LITURGY · By Will Wright

Why the Priest Washes His Hands at Mass

A small gesture at the altar opens onto the Psalms, repentance, and the humility of worship.

During the Mass, the gifts of bread and wine are presented. After the preparation of the gifts and any incensation, the priest steps to the side of the altar. A minister pours water over his hands, and he quietly prays for cleansing from sin. Most Catholics have seen this many times without asking what it is for.

The washing of the hands is called the lavabo, from the Latin for “I will wash.” Whatever practical purposes washing may have served in the history of the rite, the Church gives this gesture an explicitly spiritual meaning. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 76, identifies it as an expression of the desire for interior purification. It is not simply a matter of hygiene.

The current lavabo prayer echoes Psalm 51: “Lord, wash me from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” In the older form of the Roman rite, the lavabo included verses from Psalm 25 in the Latin Vulgate: “I will wash my hands among the innocent; and will compass thy altar, O Lord” (Douay-Rheims translation; Psalm 25:6; Psalm 26 in modern numbering). Both psalms place the gesture within Israel’s language of repentance and worship. Psalm 25 explicitly says that the hand-washing is what the worshipper does before approaching the altar. The gesture is not about clean hands; it is an acknowledgement from the priest that he is not worthy, in and of himself, to do what he is about to do. This washing is not a separate sacrament; within the rite, it expresses the need for interior cleansing. The priest is about to act in persona Christi, and the lavabo is the moment he confesses, with his body, that this is a grace, not some sort of entitlement.

So, what does that have to do with you and me? For the person in the pew, why does this unassuming, quiet action matter? The Liturgy of the Church forms us by what it does, not only what it says. The lavabo is one of dozens of small gestures which catechize the body before they catechize the mind. We genuflect or bow at the words “and He became flesh” in the Creed, we bow our head at the Holy Name of Jesus, we strike our breast during the Confiteor. The priest washes his hands in public as an act of unworthiness precisely as a man consecrated to handle the Body and Blood of Christ. This is not private piety because it is seen by the assembly. But the action is more nuanced than that: the prayer is said quietly, as the rubrics direct (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 145). The gesture is public; the prayer is not. The assembly is taught that approaching the altar is never casual, nor should it be automatic or deserved. If the priest needs to confess his unworthiness with water and a psalm before touching the gifts, then what should the rest of us be doing as we approach to receive?

The lavabo seems vestigial because we have stopped reading the sign. In light of Psalm 25 and Psalm 51, this small, hidden act of priestly humility becomes a dense moment of the rite that the assembly can learn to recognize. His hands are not dirty. The priest is an unworthy servant, and so are we. That is the point.

Sources and further reading

General Instruction of the Roman Missal, nos. 76 and 145