There’s a Camel in the Nave! Blessing of the Animals Brings Beasts & Brethren to Mass

Thousands of parishioners, curiosity seekers, pet lovers and their animals—including a camel—flocked to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights on Sunday Oct. 6 for the Feast of Saint Francis, including its signature spectacle, the Blessing of the Animals. The renowned, and massive, 601-foot-long Episcopal edifice located at 1047 Amsterdam Ave. is among the largest churches in the world and could host if a veritable Noah’s Ark of animals—if Noah could find a place to park.

Similar scenes—sans any camels—unfolded at numerous other, Episcopal parishes this day also, including St. Luke in the Fields, at 487 Hudson Street in the West Village; St. Bartholomew Church at 109 E. 50th Street; Church of the Resurrection, at 119 E. 74th Street and the Church of the Holy Trinity, 316 East 88th Street. Blessings of the Animals were also held this day at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 3 W. 65th Street and the Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran at 602 East 9th Street, among others.

All of which begs the question where’s my blessing?! Where’s my camel?! As often in theology, it’s something a long story. A short version, however, can be told in two parts.

The first is the story of an Italian man named Giovanni di Pietro Bernardone. Born in the early 1180s, he was a young man of privilege who became a poet, a beggar, an itinerant preacher and founder of the Franciscan order. Non-Christians know the Franciscans, at least visually, in the popular image Francis in a brown habit with a rope tied around his waist that includes three knots symbolizing the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Francis died in October 1226 and was canonized by Pope Gregory IX in July 1228.

Believing that nature was a reflection of God, Francis is considered the patron saint of animals and ecology—thus the annual Blessing of the Animals on the Sunday near Saint Francis’ official feast day of October 4.

The second part of the story is that of the Episcopalian church. Evolving from the Anglican Church during the Revolutionary War. the Episcopal Diocese of New York was founded in 1785. Generally quite liberal, inclusive and featuring broad cultural programming, among the Manhattan Episcopal parishes not previously mentioned Trinity Church Wall Street; Church of the Transfiguration at 1 East 29th Street; and St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery are especially renowned. Built in 1892, the Church of St Francis of Assisi, a Roman Catholic Church, at 135 West 31st Street is widely known as the home parish of Father Mychal Judge, who in his other role as FDNY chaplain died while praying in the lobby of the South Tower at Ground Zero on 9/11. The Franciscans, both priests and brothers serve in Catholic schools and churches. But the Espiscopal parishes, who adopted many of the same saints when the Anglican order split from the church of Rome in the Protestant Reformation, had become more widely known for its blessing of animals in recent years.

No Episcopal parish, however, is more renowned, or bigger, than the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and its fitting that It’s here that the Blessing of the Animals is such a spectacular event. Indeed, it’s not just the animals—the hour and twenty-minute service including choir singing, music—including the Paul Winter Consort, led by the 85-year-old jazz fusion pioneer who’s a Cathedral artist-in-residence—and dancing was itself quite astounding.

Among the creatures led through the cathedral’s awesome nave this year including a large snake carried by an adolescent blonde girl in a blue dress and a Hispanic teenager in a black Nueva York shirt; a colorful, largely blue and yellow parrot; numerous dogs; a goat; a lamb; a horse; a llama; some unseen aquatic creatures in an operating fish tank; a one-hump dromedary camel; and a cow.

Afterwards, a St. Fracis Day Fair was held, including stations for pet blessings, pet portraits, and pet adoption. There were also free daffodil bulbs available courtesy of New Yorkers for Parks.