Blessing of the Animals

Every year, The Grotto holds a special Blessing of the Animals ceremony which is open to people of all faiths and their animal companions.  Jasper really, really loves animals, and was very excited about going to this special event. It was all about honoring our pets and the love and joy they bring to our lives. Almost everyone attending brought a dog.  We also saw a few cats.  Jasper chose his six hermit crabs.  Not only is he quite fond of them, we were pretty sure the journey in the car wouldn't cause them much stress.  (This was definitely more than we could say for either of our cats, our goldfish, our crawdad or our bullfrog!)  The priest kindly offered them his blessing and sprinkled them with holy water, which they seemed to appreciate.  We both found it all really moving.