Churches letting dogs into regular church services

I wish this would happen everywhere, and in the normal parts of churches - that the regular church services would become dog friendly - for those dogs who can handle it. But any movement in this direction is fabulous, regardless!

This article is about a church in Los Angeles that has regular church services for dog owners and their dogs, which is super! It is great that dog friendliness is starting to seep into another aspect of normal everyday life - I hope it spreads outside Los Angeles and into other parts of North America - we should be able to have whatever kind of companions with us that we like - whether it's human, electronic, or canine - whatever we need to get us through our very complicated and difficult lives these days. Wonderful stuff.

Click on the below picture to read the actual article -

Catholic Burial Prayer for a dog

Some friends of mine attended a lovely burial for a beloved dog of a Catholic nun up in Antigonish County on the weekend, and they shared the handout given out with me - so I wanted to put the prayer said at the ceremony here.

I really like it because at the end it acknowledges that dogs do indeed have a soul that goes back to God - which is super to me - because the dog was owned by Catholic nuns, and sometimes people within the church have problems saying that anything other than humans have souls. I was really happy to see that this lady who had dedicated her life to God was able to see Him in her companion animal that she had lived with for so many years and was now saying Good bye to.

So here's the prayer that was said at the burial ceremony -

Creator God,
our hearts are heavy
as we face the loss in death
of our beloved Cu
who was so much part of our lives.

Cu has made our lives more enjoyable
and gave us cause to laugh
and to find joy in his company.

We remember the fidelity and loyalty of Cu
and will miss his being with us.

From Cue we learned some lessons,
such as the quality of naturalness
and the unembarrassed request
for affection and attention.

In caring for his daily needs,
we were taken up and out of our own
self needs,
and we were able to serve others at,
and what may be,
a deeper level of caring.

May the death of Cu
remind us that death comes
to us all,
animal and human,
and that it is the natural passage for all life to
enter fully into the heart of our Creator God.

May Cu sleep on
in eternal slumber in your loving care,
as with all creation he awaits
the fullness of Your Eternal presence.

Amen+