Sunday, October 3, is
Take Your Pet to Church Day in many congregations around the country. All right--actually it's the feast day of
St. Francis of Assisi. Many churches celebrate by doing a blessing of the animals. The Episcopal church I ordinarily attend is having a brief service inside the church, including communion "for the two-legged attendees" (we're an "
Open Table" congregation, but offering Rover the Body of Christ would apparently be pushing things a bit too far.)
Another local church where I sometimes attend weekday services is having an outdoor event with demonstrations by people from the zoo on Sunday evening, along with a pet treat sale and a blessing of the animals.
The actual feast day is on October 4, but a lot of churches are doing blessings on Sunday. Anybody else have a pet blessing in your neck of the woods? The American Catholic web site has a partial listing of pet blessings around the U.S., but I think that's just for Catholic churches, and a lot of people probably didn't know to send in their details.