Today is the Feast Day of St Francis of Assissi. That means any number
of churches will be hosting services of prayers of blessings for
animals. It's such a significant counter-cultural act, I think, that a
little meditation is in order.
This year, I bless our three cats. But why?
Let's
be honest. Some folks probably see Christians blessing critters as
little more than a gimmick. But for us -- as we prepare to begin a life
together in Christian marriage -- it's a way of celebrating that these
three "pets" are very much a part of our family. Through them and in
them, we experience God's good love.
And that
love is a direct challenge to a wrong-headed cultural bias that being
Christian is just a matter of the interior life. Somehow we've adopted a
world-denying concept of being Christian. I say wrong-headed, because being Christian is very much a world affirming protest.
Meeting
God in Christ happens in that world. Jesus is met in the faces off the
poor and imprisioned and hungry among us (Matthew 25). Jesus is also
met in "the least of these" -- which, I'd argue, very much includes our
cats. Meeting Jesus happens in the real, material world.
The Bible affirms
-- again and again -- that creation matters. At the heart of our Christian faith is an affirmation: God made all things good. The goodness of the world is reaffirmed in Jesus: He entered it, blessed it, stopped to love it, and even calmed it.
So
at the heart of our faith, these two affirmations -- creation and
incarnation -- help us understand why this year, and every year, on the
4th of October, we Christians stop to bless our critters.
Part
of our cultural problem is that our attitude toward creation is shaped
by a narrow reading of part of the creation stories in Genesis. When
God creates humans in Genesis 1, God instructs them to "fill the earth
and subdue it", to have dominion over the animals. That has given rise
to the notion that the world is there for our use andexploitation.
But
there's another story in Genesis 2 that corrects that misreading. In
that story, God plants a garden, and creates a man to take care of it.
In this version, human beings are caretakers, stewards of God’s
creation. The goodness of creation exists, not for us alone, but for
itself and for God’s good pleasure and there's a sense in which the fall
was at least in part because humans showed themselves to be inadequate
stewards. (Adam and Eve are responsible for the ground and animals being cursed in Genesis 3.)
Reminding
us of our responsibility for a "creation that groans for its
redemption" (Romans 8) is part of the reason we bless animals. I'm well
aware of our three's dependence upon us for food and water. I'm
awakened every morning with a reminder. And if you've had to nurse a
pet who's been sick by bringing them downstairs at 11 at night, just so
they can eat grass to calm their small stomachs, you know all about a
real interconnectedness to life like that in Romans 8 and Isaiah 11.
Creation
and incarnation. Christians keep coming back to those. And no time
more obvious than when we remember and celebrate St Francis.
In
his life, we see an emphasis on both of those central aspects of our
faith. Yes, he preached to birds, tamed a wolf that was ravaging a
town. He sang of "Brother Sun and Sister Moon". But all of that was
not just sentimentality or pious legend. It was the very heart of who
he was. For Francis, the joy and wonder he experienced in the world
around him was part and parcel of the joy and wonder of his faith and
his experience of Jesus Christ. If you've never read his Little Flowers, you're missing out.
No where, though, is that joy and wonder more obvious than when he imitates Jesus. Imitation
of Christ may be the key theme in Francis' faith and spirituality. He
is often credited with setting up the first crèche -- nativity scene.
It included, of course, live animals. There is a simplicity and
literal-mindedness in Francis' imitation of Christ. He adopted the
dress mandated by Jesus when he sent out the seventy in Matthew 10 -- a
simple robe, a rope for a belt, sandal.
And
at the heart of Francis' imitation of Christ is the cross. In fact,
near the end of his life, after he had given up any leadership in the
order he founded, Francis withdrew to a hermitage where he spent his
time alone, in prayer and meditation. During that time, as his
identification with Jesus Christ and with the cross intensified, he
received the sign of the stigmata -- for the last months of his life his
hands and feet bled from wounds, similar to the wounds suffered by
Christ on the cross.
And that's something our culture often forgets about Francis. He was intense. He
rejected the idea that Franciscans should own property and various
stories about him attest to his visceral hatred, even fear of wealth.
He ministered to and among the poor, especially the poor of the newly
urbanized towns of Italy.
Francis
is so largely misunderstood and misremembered in our culture that when
we see his spirituality embodied in front of us -- just look at the
world's fresh appreciation of Pope Francis -- we're not sure what to think. We
can see the joy and wonder of his faith on display for all of us. We
can see humility and simplicity in his refusal to live in the papal
apartments, in his driving an old Renault around Vatican City. And in
his love and concern for the poor, we can see echoes of St Francis as
well.
It's
those lessons in cruciform humility and patient love that I see in our
cats, too. In all creation, actually. There's beauty and joy and love
to be found in the world. A beauty, joy and love that we find also in
following Jesus. So this year, we're blessing our three.
Thanks be to God for Pippa, Henley and Ricky.