"Love follows knowledge."
"Beauty above all beauty!"
– St. Catherine of Siena

Monday, October 8, 2018

Matthew Monday: The Blessing of the Animals


October 4th is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, and because St. Francis had a particularly strong love for God’s creatures –he referred to them as brothers and sisters – the Catholic Church across the world has an annual blessing.  You can read about it and see some adorable pictures of animals being blessed from around the world, here.  

Our church had the blessing on the Saturday after the 4th rather than on the feast day proper.  This makes sense when you consider during the week most work during the day and children are in school.  I wonder if other churches did as well.

This is our second year we did this.  We took Rosie down to the church, and unlike some of the pictures in that link I provided the blessing at our church was performed outside.  It was amazing how many people brought their pets.  Over forty and one person literally brought Noah’s ark with him: two cats, several Guinee pigs, parakeets and cockatiels, and I don’t what else.

Rosie was excited as you can imagine.  She wants to sniff and greet and play with all other animals, friendly or not.  And at eighty pounds she’s hard to handle when she wants to rush over to someone or something.  I got a couple of pictures. 

I was able to click Matthew calming Rosie down.




And I couldn’t snap one while Rosie was actually getting blessed, I did have someone take a picture of us with Fr. Eugene, our pastor.




The reason I couldn’t snap a picture was because I had Tiger’s photo on the screen while we were up there so Fr. Eugene could bless Tiger too.  There was no way I could take Tiger over.  Some had their cats in the traveling bags, but it’s impossible for us to get Tiger in his.  He fights tooth and nail to prevent us from getting him in.


On a separate but related matter I do want to tell about my October 4th.  As you may know I live on Staten Island, which is part of New York City but unlike the rest of New York City we still have woods and some wild animals.  On the morning of the fourth, on my way to work as I was driving I saw a creature rush across the street and scurry behind some garbage pails.  When I got a better look I saw it was a possum.  Half a mile later I had to stop because a raccoon decided to cross the street.  He took his sweet time, but I was just glad to watch him.  Later that night, while coming back from the gym, on the corner near a wooded stood a deer nibbling on the grass.  Now I could go a whole year and not see a possum or a raccoon, and while deer are now more out in the open it’s not exactly an everyday event to see one.  To see all three of these creatures in one day—the day of St. Francis of Assisi’s feast day—is certainly a grace from above.  Thank you Lord.





3 comments:

  1. It sounds like you and Matthew had a Rosie of a day and that's not counting the blessing that you received from St. Francis of Assisi...

    Even though I'm not an Italian, there's a few true stories that I could tell about St. Francis of Assisi...

    Go figure! I even have more stories of our cat also called "TIGER" but long story short, I'll simply say at this time that I'm glad that your church blessed animal pets outside of church...

    WHO'S LAUGHING?

    God Bless you and your family always

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    Replies
    1. Victor! If I remember you're of French ethnicity. Then you should have a special place in your heart for St. Francis. He was named after France. I think his father traveled there regularly for his business and decided to name his son after the country.

      Yes, I agree, animals don't belong in church.

      Many blessings to you and your family as well. :)

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  2. Manny, you know a lot more about me than I believed. Did you know that entire families of our ancestors use to work on sail boats before they settled in Canada from France. One of my mother's favorite saint was St. Francis.

    It would take too long to explain some of the miracles that iii think I've seen Saint Francis perform so instead I'll simply say that I only wear two medallions around my neck which is a Cross of Jesus and the other is of Francis of Assisi.

    Longer story short, Call me crazy but I believe that during Eternity, I'll get a chance to share some of Saints experiences and dare I say that any one of my reality flesh cells if they so choose, will have a choice to sit as a child on Jesus' Lap and let's not forget our soul's invisible cells and our spirit's cells also if they believe in Jesus our Savior. They should always be afraid of being put to the test of Christ's Cross but if they have enough "Faith", they can all be literally saved by The Cross of Jesus but not every body' cells might be terrified when words like... Father, Father, Abba... WHY HAVE YOU 'FOR SAK END' "I" MEAN forsaken me, me and me, "I" mean me, myself and iii... might not care for GOD' (GOOD OLD DAD') TRINITY at that cost.

    WHO'S LAUGHING?

    GO FIGURE?

    GOD (Good Old Dad) is not rushing any one of His Children invisible cells but to be on the safe side, we should all pray prayers like... Glory be to The Father's Holy WORDS, The Son and The Holy Spirit... "As "IT" was in the beginning, is now and will always be "WORLD WITHOUT END". WHO KNOWS IF GOD MIGHT NOT END "IT" THE WORLD BEFORE WE ALL MAKE IT. LET'S PRAY AND THEN PRAY SOMEMORE.

    WHY CAN'T ALL OF US (USUAL SINNERS) NOT ALL MAKE "it" TO THE IMAGE OF GOD (GOOD OLD DAD)?

    WHO'S LAUGHING?

    I'll close by saying... OH GOOD JESUS FORGIVE ME ALL MY SINS, PRESERVE ME FROM HELL'S FIRE AND LEED INTO HEAVEN ALL YOUR SOULS, ESPECIALLY ALL YOUR SOUL CELLS WHO HAVE MOST NEED OF YOUR MERCY.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aIhta9exts&list=RD4M-zwE33zHA&index=21

    God Bless you my friend ALL-Way.

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