Free advice -- Don't sprinkle cats

The only thing worse than sprinkling cats -- immersing them!

Years ago a congregation I served in downtown Philadelphia decided to do a blessing of the animals.

We invited pet owners to bring their pets, and the clergy of the church blessed them.

Among the animals that came to be blessed was a boa constrictor. I allowed another pastor to handle that one.

Some years later the same church decided to do another blessing of the animals, and the press reported that it was a dull service because no snakes showed up.

I can no longer remember why, but we decided to bless the animals by sprinkling them with water.
(Why did no one challenge this? Didn't anyone worry that it would seem as though we were baptizing animals? However, it was pre-internet when it was less convenient to mount campaigns to wipe out unorthodox praxis. And maybe people were less prickly back then.)

This is what I learned from that experience -- Don't sprinkle cats. They don't like it. 

The dogs didn't mind. The rabbits didn't seem to mind. The guinea pigs  seemed okay with it. The gold fish sort of liked it ... when they noticed. The boa constrictor seemed lackadaisical about the whole thing.

The cats didn't like it. Not at all.

Foundry is holding a blessing of the animals on our front patio on Sunday, Oct. 14 at 3 p.m. We will not sprinkle cats.