Blessings upon Blue!

[LisaW412]

We have a new addition to our family - a beautiful Betta fish who my son loves and has named "Blue" (can anyone guess what color he is?).  Our church is having its annual St. Francis Day pet blessing this Sunday, and I asked ds if he would like to bring Blue.  He thinks that this is a great idea and wants to hold him on his lap.  I have been wanting to participate in this service for several years, but our cats get too stressed in their carriers.  I love the idea of blessing our companion animals who are such important members of our families, though, and I'm excited that now we have a pet that we can bring!

Pet blessings are a popular tradition in the Episcopal Church, and I am curious if other faiths have something similar.  Has anyone here participated in a pet blessing?  What is the most unique blessing that anyone has participated in?

[Trigger]

Our Roman Catholic parish is having a pet blessing this Sunday afternoon in the parking lot - then the deacon is going to a public park to bless animals as well.

The feast of St. Francis of Assisi is Tuesday, October 4

[Ofwait]

Many Catholic churches do pet blessings.  Usually a general pet blessing for the feast of St Francis, and often one specific to dogs for the feast of St Dominic.

It does of course depend upon whether the individual priest is an animal fan or not.

[LisaW412]

That's really interesting!  I was raised Roman Catholic, and I do not recall hearing about pet blessings at my family's church or any of the local churches growing up.  I wonder when churches started doing this, or is is something that has always been done & just wasn't on my radar when I was younger?

[FarmerBeth]

I'm Anglican, so pretty much the same as OP's Episcopal.  The pet blessing for St Francis Day is very popular, here.  Last year there were chickens, rabbits, ducks, dogs, cats, and requests for blessings (without the animals physically present) of horses and cows.  The children really loved it.  On a slightly different note, you know the blessing for the tools, originally meant for agricultural tools?  The Anglican minister in a near-by university town (she is very young and hip by minister standards) adapted the blessing with a lot of the students in mind and people brought their laptops and other school and office technological tools.  It got a lot of positive and negative press, but most people thought it was neat!

[LisaW412]

That's pretty cool, too, FarmerBeth!  We had mostly dogs & cats at our church.  My son & his friends brought little beanie baby animals from the playroom, too:-) 

The blessings for school and office tools remind me of some Episcopal churches that do backpack blessings for back-to-school.  I've even seen a story about a church that blesses motorcycles!

[FarmerBeth]

We do the back pack blessings here, too.  I think the motorcycle blessing would be big, here, because there are enormous motorcycle and antique car rally charity drives for the provincial children's hospital (it's the only one east of Toronto, actually).  It would probably feel extra special to the charity bikers.

[LisaW412]

Here is the link to a story about a church in Connecticut that does motorcycle blessings:  http://www.norwichbulletin.com/lifestyles/spirituality/x303482575/Bikes-receive-springtime-blessing-at-church

Just doing the Google search to find this article, it looks like there are quite a few "blessing of the bike" events at various Episcopal Churches.