Why the Church Blesses Animals

In her traditional Roman Ritual, the Church has several blessings for animals: for flocks of sheep and cattle, for horses and other animals, for gravely sick animals, for birds, for bees, and for silkworms. Does the Church in the new ritual called “The Book of Blessings” still bless animals?

Some have begun to wonder because of a relatively recent exchange between a devout lady and the Holy Father. By his own account, the pope tells us, “I greet her and she opens a bag. And she says, ‘Will you bless my child?’ It was a little dog. There I lacked patience and I scolded her: ‘Madam!’”

Now, the pope himself admits that he overreacted, but not because of the blessing, but because she called the dog “her child.” “Let the objection pass,” as the scholastics used to say, and because since then, the devout lady later offered her own different account of the story! And people are always over-interpreting what the Holy Father says.

The answer is yes, the Church still does bless animals—in the Roman Rite and in the Eastern churches, like those of the Byzantine rite (which, by the way, has an even more highly developed set of blessings for animals in its ritual the Book of Needs).

But back to Rome: in fact, each year in that same Piazza San Pietro where the pope’s encounter with the pious pet owner took place, there is a well-attended blessing of animals on the feast of St. Anthony of Egypt, January 17. This blessing has a long tradition, going back to the Middle Ages. In fact, St. Anthony is regarded as a patron of livestock and animals generally, especially pigs. He blessed a sick piglet who had been left at his feet by a distraught mother sow, which was healed instantly and from then on became his constant companion, what we would call today a “pet.” Thus it was that the great monastic ascetic of the desert became the patron of domesticated animals, and his feast day is a particular occasion for their blessing.

Indeed, even the Franciscans held, and in in some places still hold, the blessing of animals on the feast of St. Anthony in January. Subsequently, however, especially in the United States, the custom was introduced of blessing animals on the feast of St. Francis on or near October 4.

Francis is known for his glorious Canticle of the Sun, or as it is called in Italian, its original language, “the Canticle of the Creatures.” But this great poem of his, the first in the Italian language that has a known author, speaks not of animals so much as of the heavenly bodies—sun, moon, and stars—and of the elements—earth, air, water, and fire. Even so, the life of St Francis is filled with anecdotes—fioretti, or “little flowers”— about his preternatural relations with animals, among them birds, fish, lambs, and even a wolf.

Ironically, given the popular view of Francis as a patron of ecology, the piglet would have felt safer with St. Anthony of Egypt, since as a monk he abstained from meat at all times. The friars minor did not.  It is Francis with his animal-friendly image who was the first religious founder to dispense with the perpetual abstinence that before his big break with tradition was universal among all religious. He would have eaten a piece of bacon if it had been offered him on a normal day of the year or a feast day. St. Anthony (and many monastics even today, especially in the Eastern churches) would not have!  Francis wanted the fasting and abstinence of his friars to match that of the Church’s common discipline, and not to be different from the body of the faithful.

“But, Father, we are talking about live animals, not grace before meals!” you say. Yes, on track: what is the Church’s blessing of animals?

It is God who first blessed animals at their creation. In Genesis 1:22 and 28, Scripture tells us that God blessed the fish and birds, the work of the fifth day, and animals, the work of the sixth day. He blessed them to be fruitful and multiply and also gave them for the use and nourishment of men, who were also created on the sixth day. So blessing animals is an original activity as old as creation, a thing we do in imitation of the Creator. In fact, by giving Adam the task of naming the animals, God enjoins on us also an interest in and knowledge and care of this lower creation.

Sacred Scripture provides us with an ample sense of the divine care of animals and of their powerful meaning in the mystery of salvation. In Genesis 9, the animals are saved from the flood and afterward made a part of the covenant with Noah. In Exodus 12, the paschal lamb brings to mind the Passover sacrifice and the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. In the book of Jonah, a giant fish saves the reluctant prophet. In the first Book of Kings, ravens bring bread to Elijah—and again, in Jonah, amazingly, animals were included in the penance enjoined on humans. And most of all, in the Gospels, Our Lord was happy to be acclaimed with “Behold the Lamb of God!”

So with our minds being enlightened from Holy Writ about the matter of mere animals, it now is good to look first at the actual blessing of animals. In the preliminary notes for blessings of animals in the new Roman Ritual “Book of Blessings” (as it is called in English), we read the following:

According to the providence of the Creator . . . animals have a certain role to play in human existence by helping with work or providing food and clothing. Thus when the occasion arises, for example, the feast of some saint, the custom of invoking God’s blessing on animals may be continued.

The prayers also speak of animals as useful not only for work, but also for our “needs” in general. Here is where pets come in. They teach children how to care for others, and they supply a certain kind of affection and companionship that human beings find consoling and attractive. When we bless them, we seek to foster all these things with a blessing on the help, sustenance, assistance, and consolation they can provide. After all, the little pig did no useful work for St. Anthony, but he was his companion.

There is, as with most blessings, a longer form and a shorter, and in the case of animals, a shortest form of the rite. It can be with some readings and intercessions and a blessing, or with the prayer of blessing simply. Holy water is sprinkled on the animal if there is some at hand. Here is the oration from the current rite:

O God,
the author and giver of every gift,
animals also are part of the way you provide help
for our needs and labors.
We pray (through the intercession of Saint Anthony, or Francis, et al.)
that you will make available for our use
the things we need to maintain a decent human life.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Since we have the use of reason and properly spiritual insight, we can all see by now why we should be eager to have our animals blessed on St. Francis’s or St. Anthony’s day or on any other day. Every priest and deacon, even the Holy Father (if you ask correctly!), all the way down the line to the present writer would be happy to do so.