Blessing of the Animals

At the Episcopal church near our house in Winchester it was announced at the worship service today that animals would be blessed next Sunday and that the parishioners are welcome to bring their pets, “large or small, real or stuffed for a special blessing.” (The priest, however, added that if anyone brought a pet snake, he will have to get a different priest to bless it!)

Blessing of the Animals is a regular Episcopalian practice but my evangelical upbringing and mindset could not easily accommodate the idea of God’s sanctuary being open to animals. God’s salvation is for God’s people, I knew.  Jesus came down from heaven “for us and for our salvation”. Animals are clearly outside God’s salvific plan.

Are they? As a child, I remember my visits to my maternal grandparents’ house in Punnavely in rural Kerala. They were faithful Anglicans and good Christians. My grandfather was a small farmer and regularly had one or two cows and goats. His whole life revolved around his farm including his cattle. And when a cow is due to give birth, he would worry over it just like any expectant parent. These worries would get reflected at the evening family prayer when he would earnestly pray for the animal. I could not fully comprehend the theological rationale behind this but strangely felt comfortable that my grandparents lived a life where all – their lives, their cattle, their neighbors – where seen as very much within the care and protection of God.  

In the most recent issue of New Vision, Most Rev. Dr. Philipose Mar Chrysostom, the Senior Metropolitan of the Mar Thoma Church, narrates an instance from his life. One day a man came to his house with a pregnant cow and wanted the bishop to pray for safe delivery. The bishop’s assistant tried to shoo the man away saying, bishops do not pray for animals. The bishop came out, admonished his assistant and said that he would pray for anyone and anything that is brought to him.

Life is sacred; not only human life but also animal life. Dr. M. M. Thomas, in his Biblical reflections on the book of Deuteronomy used to say that even when it was recognized that eating animal flesh is permitted, God’s people were prohibited from eating the meat with lifeblood on it. “But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.” (Deuteronomy 12: 23).

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. (Psalm 150: 6)