Animal Blessings List

October 4 will be World Animal Day and the Feast of St Francis, the patron saint of animals & ecology.

It's traditional to have blessings of animals on or near this day. Every year, the American catholic site collects a
list of where Animal Blessings will be held throughout the country. It covers churches of all denominations...the American catholic site just acts as a gathering point.


The 2001 Listing of Animal Blessings was
launched on September 18 and you can survey it by clicking on http://www.AmericanCatholic.org/Features/Francis

If people have an Animal Blessing planned, they can contact the site & have it added to the list.
So the list will continue to grow until October 4.

There's one in Austin, but its at 10am and I have a 9:30am class on Saturdays :( Maybe I can make it next year.

(hehe I checked my syllabus and we're not doing anything important that day. Also attendance isn't required so I think Shiloh, Reece, and Lolly will be blessed! Thanks for posting this)

[ September 21, 2001: Message edited by: aly ]

Thanks Angels3 for sharing that site, I put it in my favorites, we need all the help we can get for ourselves and our animals.
Jackie

We have a Blessing of the Animals mass at church on the Feast of St. Francis. Daisy, being the officialy CCD mascot, is always there every year with her boyfriend Moe (my best friend's dog). Everyone brings all kinds of animals, from goldfish to birds, horses to chickens, dogs to cats, guinea pigs to hermit crabs! It's relly great.

Angels3,
I knew that this Blessing of All Animals has been practiced in Europe for many years,
but did not know of any USA sites.
Thanks for posting this link..

We don't have that in Singapore, and being a free-thinker I can't really participate in it... I still hope that Cookie is OK!

I wanted to bump this topic to the top to remind everyone that the 4th is coming up! I can't wait for the 6th which is when the church here is doing the blessings. I'm taking my camera and can't wait to post some pics!!!

Here we go on a walk down Memory Lane again. This picture was taken at the Blessing of the Animals exactly 20 years ago. That's me (in the white sweater) and my next door neighbors with our five month old cockapoo puppies who were littermates. Obviously they had not been to the groomers yet. The blessing must have worked because they both lived long lives. http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?...276&p=54642701

Rachel!!! Adorable pic!!!!

Rachel, I loved that photo, those pups are so cute. The cockapoos are so pretty.. I'm also partial to black dogs of any kind.
Jackie

I LOVE the pic Rachel! You're so pretty and the dogs are adorable.

I loved the pic, too, Rachel. And, Aly, I hope a lot of other people from the board take their camera to the Blessing of the Animals events.
We change our denomination on the Animal Blessings Sunday. We take our pets to the nearest ceremony which is at an anglican church (episcopalian??? in the US). The nearest catholic one is way across the city...& it's a hot journey for the pets (summer's coming on in the southern hemisphere).
There's also an Animals' Blessing ceremony in the city square. One year the Mayor's dog bit the Bishop who was blessing the animals . When the Bishop approached shaking the holy water dispenser, the dog thought he was attacking its owner. So the dog bit him...but it was only a warning nip! Everybody thought it was very funny including the Bishop...but the Mayor was embarrassed.

We took our four dogs to a lovely blessing on Sunday afternoon, at a park near a river. There was a Catholic priest, and Episcopalian priest, and even someone who read a Native American blessing.
Lots of doggies.. I love seeing a variety of breeds and mutts. Probably 3 or 4 people brought cats, one brought a ferret, and one brought a bird (in a cage, of course). It was very nice that our pets had this opportunity to be blessed!