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Goin’ to the Chapel

The Blessing of the Animals a la Romana

By Rose Lee Hayden

While animal rights and protection advocates still have their work cut out for them, things have certainly come a long way since 80 A.D. when Titus opened the Coliseum with 100 days of games during which 2,000 gladiators and more than 5,000 animals – including tame giraffes, hippos and big cats - were slaughtered before a cheering crowd of some 70,000 spectators. While the last recorded animal spectacle took place in 523 A.D., not quite 50 years after the fall of Rome, it is a matter of historical debate whether or not Christians were routinely fed to the lions, Hollywood style.

But back to our topic - “all creatures great and small,” and the fact that animals have their very own patron saint, S. Antonio Abate (Saint Anthony Abbot), whose official feast day is January 17. On or around this day, churches throughout Italy somehow survive the annual onslaught of owners and animals who convert their house of worship into a modern-day Noah’s Ark. The occasion – an ancient ceremony today widely known and celebrated as “The Blessing of the Animals.”  

Historically, the blessing of animals dates back to the ancient Roman celebration of the Ferie Sementine, a pre-spring fertility festival to honor the gods Cerere Terra, during which a pregnant animal was sacrificed and garlanded oxen were paraded about. By the 8th century, this Roman festival had evolved to the point where work animals – donkeys, horses, and oxen – were given a symbolic “day off” while their owners sought the Church’s divine protection for the creatures upon whose hooves their very livelihood depended. According to one legend, a nasty nobleman who refused to give his horse a rest on this sacred day died when his carriage flipped over on him. Served him right.

Just who was this Saint Anthony Abbot, anyway, and how did he come to be associated with animals? According to Alfredo Cattabiani’s Santi D’Italia, he was an Egyptian hermit who was born around the middle of the third century A.D., and was quite an unusual guy. When his rather well off parents died when he was twenty, he renounced everything for the monastic life, subsisting on bread and water while living in the desert, thus managing to escape Rome’s widespread 4th-century persecution of Christians. In fact, when Saint Anthony Abbot died in 356 A.D., he was 106 years old, thanks, in part, to good genes, historical luck, and an obviously very low cholesterol diet.

For those of you, like myself, who are curious about why this saint is always pictured with a pig, here’s the story. According to legend, Saint Anthony Abbot cured a very sick pig, who then became his faithful companion. (A grateful pig is a loyal pig, after all). In point of fact, St. Anthony Abbot is still venerated for his gift of healing, and in France, the order founded to honor him exercises an old papal privilege of raising pigs that are allowed to roam freely. 

It also seems that his cult merged with that of a Celtic divinity with the distinctly undivine name of Lug. For the Celts and the Druids, wild boars were considered sacred, so sacred that the Celts wore their hair short and waxed it into stiff bristles to emulate this “divine” creature. Thus, “the punk look” can be directly traced to pre-Christian times when men were men, when men were… pigs?  (Let’s not go there, ladies.)

Since Saint Anthony Abbot won his battle with temptation and the devil, and his original cult followers were up against pig-worshipers, it is no surprise that taming the sacred beast of the pagans and conquering evil play a part in the symbolism here. And lest we neglect to appreciate pigs more fully, it is a well-known scientific fact that of all the animals on earth, the pig is the most compatible with human beings re: organ transplants. Who knows? As a healer, maybe Saint Anthony Abbot suspected this all along…      

Nowadays pampered pets have essentially replaced beasts of burden as the objects of these blessings, bringing to mind that cold January day a few years back when I brought my very pampered poodle, Lola, to be blessed at Rome’s Church of S’Eusebio. And I was not alone. A truly “politically correct” range of people and pets was on hand - rich and poor, young and old, cat people, dog people, mouse people, fish people, horse people, rabbit people and then some. Fortunately for the marbled floors, the sermon was brief, and religious, rather than bodily functions were the norm. After mass, proud owners and still-wary animals then proceeded to the square where a statue of Saint Anthony Abbot (with pig) was borne aloft onto the scene.

Even now I remember being caught up in the moment, feeling inexplicably happy when my doggie received her very own blessing from the priest. When all is said and done, it was a remarkable experience, a chance to share our love for our beloved pets, and to renew our commitment to protecting and respecting all of God’s creatures.

But what especially lingers in my memory is that special moment when, for the first time in my life, while praying for my beloved little Lola, I experienced a real spiritual connection, and understood that I, in fact, was the one being truly and fully blessed...along with Fido and Fluffy and Tweety and Trigger and many other creatures great and small.

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