Feast of St. Francis

The feast of St. Francis, for some of the Christian persuasion, is celebrated on October 4th this year.  The nutshell bio of St. Francis is that he's the patron saint of animals.  If you think about it, you've likely seen statues of him in gardens around your neighborhood before.  Anyhow, being raised  protestant I'm not the type that gets overly excited about celebrating saints but this particular observation is pretty fun for us pet owners. 


Blessing of the Animals

Many churches will hold a special service that celebrates St. Francis and also has a Blessing of the Animals.  Some are huge and some are modest.  (I heard the Catholic church in Minneapolis had an elephant from the zoo show up last year!)  But it's pretty common to have several services like this in a city.  Let's be honest here... regardless of your background in religion I think it's safe to say that we've all at one point felt a little disconnected from it.  Like the ritual and our lives sometimes don't line up.  For me, at least, this is one time when my life and my church line up.  I plan on taking Winnie to the Blessing of the Animals where I live and I thought if this was something you might like to do with your pup, I'd give you enough heads up to find a service wherever you are. 


A priceless picture of a cat hissing while being blessed.



I guess he needed the holy water, too.  The rest of us didn't get that.  :-)

Here are some more photos from 2009.  Winnie was barking so much that the priest actually ad libbed her into his sermon!  What a good sport.  I'll be sure to blog an update for 2010.  :-)

The little stinker wouldn't hold still either. 

She looked great in her Episcopal Shield leash though!