Blessing The Animals

Yesterday, Sunday, September 27, Wellsville's St. Francis Animal Center sponsored a blessing of the animals at Thompson Park. It's an annual event that they hold sometime around the feast of St. Francis. SFAC is an all volunteer group that rescue stray animals and then try to place them with loving families. If that is not possible they turn them over to rescue organizations. According to an article in Saturday's ER they currently have six dogs in foster care. Wellsville is blessed to have two volunteer groups that humanely deal with the village's animal problems. SFAC will take in any animal but concentrate on dogs. The Alley Cat Aid Brigade, as the name implies, focus their attention on cats.

St. Francis of Assisi is widely known as the patron saint of animals. Assisi is a town in Italy. The son of a wealthy cloth merchant St. Francis died in the year 1226. Against the wishes of his father he gave up his claim of wealth to serve the needs of the poor, sick and downtrodden. He founded the Order of Franciscans.

You often see statues of St. Francis with birds perched on his outstretched arms. He was known to have a special relationship with all animals. With the gentle power of his voice there wasn't an animal that feared him. He believed all animals were God's creatures and deserved sharing life on earth. He even taught villagers that if you feed a wolf that was killing off farm animals that the wolf & their live stock could coexist with each other. It is said that on his deathbed St. Francis thanked his donkey for carrying him for so long. They claimed the donkey wept. The Feast of St. Francis is celebrated on October 4.

The blessing at yesterday's event was done by Rev. Steve Cramer. Rev. Cramer is pastor of both Trinity Presbyterian in EL and Longs Run Church in Calcutta. He bestowed St. Francis' blessing on 43 dogs and one cat. Even with the wet weather it was a fantastic turnout according to SFAC member Bobbie Holt. Many of the animals that got blessed were ones adopted from various rescue leagues. I fell in love with Tabitha, the English bulldog, shown here. They look mean but are one of the gentlest dogs you'll ever meet.

If you missed yesterday's blessing there will be another chance next Sunday, October 4. The Alley Cat Aid Brigade will be sponsoring the second one at Wellsville's Immaculate Conception Church on 11th St. It will begin around 11:30 A.M. following Mass in the church's parking lot. Any animal of any kind is welcome to be blessed by Father Peter. Each animal will be given a St. Francis metal.

Coming up next for the SFAC is a dinner at the Alumni Center. There'll be speakers, dinner and entertainment. We'll have more on that later but keep it in mind. The price is right at $15 per person or $20 per couple. The dinner will be Saturday, October 24, at 6 P.M.

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