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Saint Francis and World Animal Day

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Today is both the Feast of Saint Francis and World Animal Day! I have been very blessed to have shared my entire life with many animals. Since birth my life has been filled with animals and full because of animals. I’ve owned, lived with, raised, healed, and bred all sorts of animals: hamsters, songbirds, tropical birds, chickens, fresh and tropical fish, toads, an iguana, snakes, turtles, a tarantula, cats, and dogs. I cannot imagine what it is like to not have animals around. My current “kids”:

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I am eternally grateful for animals, and I pray that all humans learn to love and appreciate the lessons and love that animals can bring into our lives!

Saint Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals, gardens, and the environment. He came from a wealthy family, having all the comforts of luxury for his day, but he saw that material things and pleasures could not fill his heart and soul with joy and peace. He left this existence of emptiness and suffering for the life of an ascetic monk. He chose a life of material poverty so that he could find abundance within his heart through teaching love and compassion and providing service towards others, not only to humans but also towards both animals and the environment.

Though we do not have to choose a monastic life to find everlasting fortune and abundance in our own lives, we can choose to work towards finding the courage to let go of our egos’ attachments to the material and fleeting, and to work towards filling our hearts with the same passion for compassion that Saint Francis exemplified. May The Prayer of Saint Francis be a mantra for us to live with our hearts:

Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me bring you love,
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope,
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.
Oh Master grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all men that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. 

– Mahatma Gandhi



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