It's been said that families that pray together stay together, and through this weekend, many homes will include their four-legged - or feathered, finned or scaly - family members in worship.
Around Baltimore and the nation, Christian and some Jewish congregations honor creatures great and small with blessing services, a reflection of people's devotion to pets and, more recently, society's growing environmental awareness. Many are scheduled near Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and ecology.
"Everyone has a kind of desire to seek God's favor in their stewardship of their pets," said the Rev. Mark Bialek, who planned to bring his Italian greyhound, Holly, to an animal blessing yesterday at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Fullerton.
To some theologians and clergy, animal blessings - usually short and held outside for practical reasons - reflect their belief that God created the world, and that humans have a responsibility to care for it.
The blessings, often followed by fellowship over dog biscuits, also tap into owners' attachment to pets, a relationship that some scholars say has a spiritual dimension.
Nearly two-thirds of American households - 71.1 million homes - include a pet, according to the 2007-2008 National Pet Owners Survey. Last year, consumers spent $38.5 billion on companion animals, a sum expected to grow by $2 billion this year, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. Some doting owners even buy kosher food and Christmas or Hanukkah gifts for their pampered pets.
As early as 1614, a blessing for animals was included in a Roman Catholic priest manual, the Rev. Andrew Linzey, a theologian and director of the England's Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, said in an e-mail. What's new is the trend toward worship services focusing on animals, said Linzey, author of Animal Rites: Liturgies of Animal Care.
At Grace and St. Peter's Episcopal School in Mount Vernon, students, parishioners and neighbors brought pets to the church's front steps Thursday for a blessing.
"It's a mini Noah's ark," said the Rev. Frederick Thomas.
With nine dogs, four cats, three hamsters and two birds present, the humans sang hymns and listened to Scripture before Thomas sprinkled holy water on the animals. As he moved among the crowd, the dogs flinched at the water, and the priest remarked that cats and birds aren't fond of holy water.
