Dear Friends,
Given that this email is a day late, you might have gathered I’m a bit busy. Or a bit disorganized. Or something like that.
The real story is that I’ll be “attending” aka streaming Evolving Faith this Friday and Saturday, as the conference is happening as a remote experience this year. But that means I’ve been bustling through a normal work week to be able to take Friday off - and somewhere in all this, I’m still trying to get ready for the Feast of St. Francis on Sunday.
Given all the restrictions, which appropriately remain quite strict where I live, we’re not blessing any animals. I don’t know if we blessed any animals last year, to be quite honest, although given our location, I can imagine we get an interesting showing. In its place, I’m working on a little blessing video featuring parish pets. If you’ve got fuzzy or feathered or scaly friends at home, I hope they hear a little bit about God’s love for them this weekend.
I grew up in a tradition that made no mention of the Saints beyond the loosest notion that we joined the communion of all saints when we died, but I’ve grown into an adult who has very much taken to learning about and recognizing the unique contributions of the Saints. And while I might not initially name Saint Francis as one of those who is most significant to me, there are 11 cat - yes your read that right, ELEVEN CATS - in my house right now.
If St. Francis is remembered for his care for all creation, and particularly for animals, then clearly I’ve found myself following in his footsteps. My wife is a veterinary technician, currently preparing for veterinary school, and as fosters, we take in some of the most vulnerable cats in our community: pregnant mamas, orphaned kittens, sick cats. We run a veritable pet pharmacy out of our bathroom, and we’ve even tended to a cat placed with us through what turned out to be his final months, shifting from traditional fosters to animal hospice. Some days are hard and sad and others are funny and joyful. Right now, there are four baby kittens in my house. They turned three weeks old today and they just learning how to walk, and isn’t that a small miracle?
One of the great lessons of St. Francis, drawn from the folklore known as the Fioretti or Little Flowers, is the story of the Wolf of Gubbio. menaced a town where Francis once lived. The wolf was known to eat animals as well as men, until his encounter with Francis. What happened then? Francis made the sign of the cross, called the wolf to him, and then told him to hurt no one. Then he took the wolf back into the terrorized town and told them that because the wolf had only done evil out of hunger, they were to feed him. The people needed to meet the wolf’s needs and he would not hurt them. And peace was restored.
Now, the worst any of the cats have done to me lately, is scratch up my legs, but if St. Francis was able to mend the relationship between a wolf - a non-human creature - and a town of people who felt they had been wronged by that wolf, whose animals and families had been eaten by the wolf, how much more do we owe to other people? How many problems could we solve through service to others? I do what I can with animals, even on the days it is more tragic than precious, because it is a small way of caring for God’s creation, but I use so many of those same skills when I’m at my best with other people. And children, oh they are so often at their best with vulnerable animals. They are so many kinds of tender. They know what it is to be that vulnerable.
This Sunday, I hope you can bless your pets. I hope you can learn something new about the animals that live near you, whether that’s pigeons and squirrels or bears and moose. I hope you can find a little of St. Francis’s tender spirit. I’ll be here, with all the cats, doing what I can.
Be well,
A. Bird