By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
The most wonderful thing happens about once a month during Mass at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. A medium-sized black dog stands at the altar and wags its tail at the congregation.
His name is Pringle, and he is the guide dog for one of the church’s lay ministers, a person who reads the readings, distributes communion, gives out ashes on Ash Wednesday, etc. It is a lovely sight to see a service dog assisting a service person at a church service. One day, while watching Pringle, I realized that God must have been in an especially good mood when God created dogs.
Pringle is an ideal member of our community. He is quiet and respectful at Mass. He always has a kind look in his soft brown eyes. He wags his tail frequently: at the whole community while his human partner does the readings, at the Sign of Peace, and also whenever anyone comes near the place where he sits. The worst thing he has done in church is to doze off now and then, a failing he shares with the best of us.
Ironically, D*O*G is the backwards spelling of G*O*D, which I think is intentional, much like how when you look in a mirror you get a backwards image of yourself. I think that dogs reflect the divine image in so many ways, but my point of view has not always been common.
In the Bible, to liken a human to a dog or to call someone a dog was to attribute a very low status (see: 2 Kings 8:13; Exodus 22:31; Deuteronomy 23:18; 2 Samuel 3:8; Proverbs 26:11; Ecclesiastes 9:4; 2 Samuel 9:8; 1 Samuel 24:14). In the New Testament, to refer to a human as a dog meant to call the person evil (Philemon 3:2; Revelation 22:15). Pope Pius IX, the Catholic church leader from 1846 to 1878, taught that dogs and other animals have no consciousness and no souls.
On occasion, the Bible and the popes have portrayed dogs in a better light. My friend and fellow blogger Gary Topping recently pointed out how a dog was a prominent and valued family member in the story of the Book of Tobit (see: https://theboymonk.com/an-advertisement-for-the-book-of-tobit/). The Book of Proverbs also implicitly recognized their value when declaring, “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal.” (Proverbs 12:10)
In the 1960s, Pope Paul VI once told a distraught boy whose dog had died: “One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.” Pope John Paul II suggested in 1990 that animals do have souls and are “as near to God as men are.” In late 2014, Pope Francis, speaking of the afterlife, appeared to suggest that animals also could go to heaven, asserting, “Holy Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us.”
Literature also shows us the spiritual nature of dogs. Wilson Rawls, in Where the Red Fern Grows, tells a story of a boy and his two noble dogs: Old Dan who was very strong and brave, and Little Ann, who was very smart and cautious. When the dogs die heroically, a beautiful red fern grows between their graves. Rawls recalls the Cherokee legend that only an angel can plant a red fern and that it only grows in sacred spots amidst true love.
When our family collie Laddie died at age 12, a good friend gave us the book Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant. The book, which was a great comfort, proclaims that all dogs go to Heaven, and that when they get there “they don’t need wings because God knows that dogs love running best. He gives them fields. Fields and fields and fields. When a dog first arrives in heaven, he just runs.”
Rylant was right about Laddie. He loved to run. He was kind, devoted, protective of our children, and peaceful. He died right about the same time that my wife Vicki conceived our son Danny, who now is 21. Danny and Laddie share many of the same loving characteristics, often making us wonder if reincarnation could ever fit into the Catholic belief system.
Ultimately, and in my favorite Bible verse, God fills paradise with animals: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.” (Isaiah, 11:6-9)
Dogs like Laddie, and like Pringle on the altar, are a sign of divine love and goodness. They give us a glimpse of God’s peaceable kingdom, a sight we can never see enough of these days.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is writing a book about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah
