Hello, and peace to you today. This is CH (MAJ) Patty Jenkins with the 63d Readiness Division.
In Los Angeles, a Blessing of the Animals traditionally takes place every spring on Olvera Street where deep Mexican roots and culture enrich the neighborhood. The Olvera Street tradition began in 1930, but the practice dates back to a 4th Century saint who blessed cows, goats, chickens, and pigs to promote good health and prosperity. Eventually, livestock and farm animals were joined by pets of all kinds in this happy ritual.
What is a blessing? Author John O’Donohue writes, “Without warning, thresholds can open directly before our feet. These thresholds are often the shorelines of new worlds…lessings attempt to offer a brief geography of the new experience and some pathways of presence through it.”
The threshold of Covid-19 definitely fits the picture of the ground falling away at my feet. To envision the gaping hole as the “shoreline of a new world” takes hope, imagination, and companions. That’s why as the reality of the pandemic set in, animal shelters cleared out! People were fostering or adopting animals at rates never seen before. Just when shelters start to see a springtime surge of puppies and kittens, people started showing up who didn’t want to isolate in isolation.
Do animals perceive a new shoreline? I don’t know. Do they understand the words of blessing? I don’t think so. But I do know they share the emotions of their people, and benefit when their caretakers feel hopeful and encouraged.
Author Marilynne Robinson in her novel Gilead, sets forth the diary of a preacher recalling a childhood afternoon when he and his playmates baptized a litter of kittens. (Fortunately, they were Methodists and not Baptists and so a sprinkling on the brow would do.)
“I still remember how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing… It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is one of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.”
If you have a pet, you are already blessing them with food and shelter—simple things they might not otherwise have had. But if you would like to offer them a blessing, the words below are a suggestion.
“You whose life is lived in the here and now,
whose heart and depth
remain connected to earth in ways many humans have lost;
You who still dream of wild places
and feel the urging of your ancestors;
May you be blessed with the freedom
to wander in the security of home,
to be loved for who you are, and no more.
May you continue to know mysteries to tease your mind,
food and water to sustain you,
shelter to protect you,
and humans who deserve you.”
Here is the direct email and phone number for anyone requesting support From
the 63d RD Chaplain office,
usarmy.usarc.63-rsc.list.chaplain-all-users@mail.mil
650-526-9668