Posted on 08/12/2016 6:50:19 AM PDT by Salvation
I am often struck by the mystery of the relationship that dogs and cats set up with their owners. While I realize that we humans often project what we want their behavior to mean, I am still fascinated by the reality of how our pets come to “know” us and set up a kind of communication with us.
Dogs, especially, are very demonstrative, interactive, and able to make knowing responses. Cats are more subtle. My cat, Jewel, knows my patterns. She also knows how to communicate to me that she wants water, food, or just a back rub. She’s also a big talker, meowing each time I enter the room. I wish I knew what she wanted.
Yes, this interaction with our pets is indeed a mysterious thing. I am not suggesting that animals are on a par with us intellectually or morally; Scripture is clear that animals are given to us by God and that we are sovereign stewards over them.
But animals, especially our pets, are also to be appreciated as gifts of God. Scripture is also clear that animals will be part of the renewed creation that God will bring about when Christ comes again in glory:
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:6-9).
Hence, when Christ from His judgment seat shall finally say, Behold, I make all things new (Rev 21:5), and when with John we see a new heavens and a new earth (Rev 21:1), I have little doubt that animals will share in that recreated and renewed kingdom where death shall be no more (Rev 21:4).
They are part of the Kingdom! Without elevating pets (no matter how precious to us) to the full dignity of human beings, it is not wrong to think that they will be part of the Kingdom of God in all its restored harmony and beauty.
Maybe now, in the mystery of our interaction with our pets, God is giving us a glimpse of the harmony we will one day enjoy with all creation. Scripture says,
For indeed, creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:19-21).
Yes, creation itself is eagerly waiting the day when God says (in the words of an old spiritual), “Oh, preacher, fold your Bible, for the last soul’s converted!” And then creation itself will be set free from its bondage to death and decay and will be gloriously remade into its original harmony and the life-possessing glory that was once paradise.
Perhaps the mystery of our pets is that they are ambassadors for the rest of creation, a kind of early delegation sent by God to prepare the way and begin to forge the connections of the new and restored creation. Perhaps they are urging us on in our task of making the number of the elect complete so that all creation can sooner receive its renewal and be restored to the glory and harmony it once had. Who knows? But I see a kind of urgency in the pets I have had over the years. They are filled with joy, enthusiasm, and the expectation of something great.
They show joyful expectation! Yes, there was a kind of joyful expectation in the dogs of my youth: running in circles around me, dashing to greet me when I arrived home, and jumping for joy when I announced a car ride or a walk. My cats have always sauntered over to meet me at the door with a meow, an arched back, and a rub up against my leg. Somehow our pets manifest this Scripture passage: Creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19).
Monsignor Pope Ping!
That said, my cats are very specific in what they are trying to say. They have me well trained.
Sickening, isn’t it? Christians being locked up in China, raped in Syria, murdered in Nigeria ... and this doddering fool wants to talk about kittens and puppies.
I don’t know about morality but cats and dogs show a lot of good judgment. More than many people these days.
If everyone had a kitten or puppy, maybe there wouldn’t be so much hate and violence in the world.
You may be onto something. Islam considers dogs unclean.
.... and this doddering fool wants to talk about kittens and puppies....
There is enough news about raping and murdering by muslim savages. It’s a nice change to reflect on something beautiful such as God’s creations.
This “doddering fool” as you so casually call him, spent his entire adult life ministering to the poorest of the poor in urban cities.
Thanks for a totally thoughtless comment.
As evidenced on this very thread!
Its not sickening at all to take joy in somnething. There is plenty of time left over to be sickened at every bad thing going on.
I don’t want to offend any of my Christians brothers and sisters, especially here on FR. But at what point are church leaders going to shoulder their primary responsibilities?
” ... and this doddering fool wants to talk about kittens and puppies.”
“this doddering fool” is probably the best Catholic homilist since Bp. Fulton J. Sheen to speak in a public ministry.
I suggest that you read a few more of his blogs before you write ill-advised statements that reflect poorly on you.
What he is really talking about is the hope of glory that sustains us in the midst of our suffering.
"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Col. 1:24-27 ESV)
The Christian being locked up in China, raped in Syria, murdered in Nigeria...and being locked up in Tennessee, with their livelihoods being destroyed in Oregon...all these, and us in our sufferings whatever they may be, are experiencing the birth pangs of what God intends for all creation to be, and what He will bring to fruition in His time--indeed, in the perspective of eternity, He has already brought to fruition.
In the meantime, my dog's desire for my presence, his unfailing trust in me to provide for all his needs, and his unending happiness at my love for him, is a message from God, both of comfort and admonition: comfort because God cares for me infinitely more than I care for my dog, and admonition because I love God infinitely less than a dog is able to love me.
And if America chooses again to reject God in November and if someday in a post-Christian nation I am murdered, my wife locked up and my daughter raped, the love of God will be there much more powerfully for us than it is now, when all it takes is a dog to remind me how God loves me and how I should love Him.
Fortunately, he did. He was a pretty good judge of character.
That's to his credit but the poor will always be with us. It's the baals and asherah poles that need his attention, now:
OKLAHOMA CITY, Aug. 11, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Amid growing protest Satanists plan to stage a second Black Mass at the public Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City on August 15, 2016. The public sacrilege against God and the Catholic Mass will include the desecration of a statue of the Virgin Mary whose Assumption into Heaven is celebrated that day.
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/6165578271.html
Go spend 40 years ministering to them like he did and get back to me. Until then, keep your weak excuse for your foolish statement to yourself.
Charles Popes and Fulton Sheens not needed right now. What we need right now are Jon Dons:
WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold 25
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. 55
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate! 65
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.
St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.) 75
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes, 80
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,—
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work, 100
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year, 110
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark; 115
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, 140
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
I’m sorta concerned about the carnivorous deletion...does that mean there’s no BarBQ in Heaven?
Actually I believe there are much better things, an is that ever something to look forward to!
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