Unconditional love from pets can be a blessing for owners

In early October, pets join their owners in many churches worldwide for the annual Blessing of the Animals. The tradition honors St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

"St. Francis considered animals good models of Christian living and believed that humans have a lot to learn from them," said the Rev. Bob Lawrence, associate rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church.

Many congregations hold an animal blessing on the Sunday closest to Oct. 4, St. Francis' official feast day, he said. St. Michael's in downtown Charleston will hold its blessing Oct. 14.

"The pets sit in the pews with their owners," Lawrence said. "We've seen everything from snakes to birds, from fish to horses."

The service is intentionally short. After a brief homily and Scripture reading, the animals are blessed with holy water.

The ceremony is "an opportunity for us as humans to experience unconditional love that is tangible," Lawrence said. "I think that love (between pet and owner) is a glimpse of the love we should have for God, and the love that God has for us."

In her new book, "The God-Dog Connection," South Carolina author Marti Healy explores the idea that a pet's unconditional love for its owner mimics the love humans should feel toward God, the same love that God has for his people. "God-Dog" is a collection of anecdotes about how Healy has applied God's lessons to her pets and the spiritual relationships she has with them.

"The stories just kept coming to me, and I think they were a gift," Healy said. It is important to look at our pets as examples of moral beings with much to teach us, she said.

Healy started her own pet ministry after writing "The God-Dog Connection" and incorporates an annual blessing of the animals. "I think God has many lessons for us and even more ways of teaching them," Healy said. "Animals are one of the ways he speaks to us. We just have to learn to pay attention."

Today, religions and cultures have varying interpretations of animal and human relationships. With urbanization, industrialization and the birth of New World religions came a distance between man and nature, said College of Charleston religion professor Lee Irwin. Consequently, beliefs about animals and their place in the universe shifted. Controversy arose over animal rights issues, environmental concerns and conservation efforts, yet animal deities remain prevalent in native religions today, Irwin said.

"In the tales of Native Americans, the heroes are not humans, but animals and stars," Irwin said.

While native religions value animals for their teaching power, it is more the spiritual kinship between animals and people that is celebrated, Irwin said.

"These indigenous people, the ones who respect animals as brothers and sisters, grandfathers and grandmothers are the people still living in nature with the animals," Irwin said. "In agricultural societies, man turned to nature for spiritual strength."

Summerville Catholic School held its Blessing of the Animals on Thursday, the feast day for St. Francis. Faculty, parents, children and their pets gathered in front of the school for a prayer service and blessing, said school Principal Paul Schroeder.

The school offers the blessing as "a way for the children to see a connection between St. Francis' love for animals, their own love for their pets and our love as parents and faculty," Schroeder said. "A blessing of the animals teaches them the importance of not only taking care of their own animals, but all of God's creation."

Reach Alexandra Seaman at aseaman@postandcourier.com.