Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Velázquez, 1618
Incredible story. One of our two great pastors, Fr Wee, told us in his Sunday sermon of the few months he spent with a living saint priest on the Thai/Malaysian border. Thick jungle. No food except boiled rice and vegetables. No salt, pepper, tea, coffee, milk, anything, or computers, phones, etc.
Fr W could tell he was a saint by (inter alia) his mastery over the local wildlife. There were man-eating tigers around. If one bounded up to him, fancying a brunch snack (Fr S was only 5 feet tall), Fr S would simply turn around, face the tiger, make the sign of the cross, and the tiger would sneak shamefully away. He did the same with the huge python snakes that abound. He was getting in his car and a cobra rose erect, poised to strike. Fr S said “Get out of here! You don’t belong!” The cobra slithered away.
Fr Wee’s point was that when you reach the height of sanctity, as described in St Teresa’s The Interior Castle or in Thomas Aquinas, you may display the prelapsarian (pre-fall) lordship over creation that Adam had. As with this priest, or St Martin de Porres, or St Francis, St Jerome, St Collette, or countless others. Including some really holy guy in Christchurch, N.Z., who prays in his backyard, and birds come and perch on his shoulders.
I clearly have a way to go. My cat disobeys every command I give her.
Thank you for that @doverObeach.
It works in reverse for me; I do everything that my little westie tells me to do.
so you should!
Would YOU eat anything that tasted of boiled rice and vegetables? Thought not. They’re man-eating tigers, not Bandt-eating tigers.
Yes, we used to have lordship and dominion over all creatures and live in harmony with them all.
I thank God that he still left us with dogs though. Dogs are great.
Someone put our relationship with the feline species perfectly in a cv I saw recently. After describing his career and professional attainments, the cv says that he is the husband of Maggi, father of four children and butler to three cats.
Yesterday evening one of the horses barged their way into the yard, I hunted her out but left the gate open. A minute later she was back. I chased her out again as I drove out. As I closed the gate she came back nostrils flared, head high, incensed at being kept out of a yard she doesn’t normally enter. My dad observed her behaviour and concluded that something was wrong. A bought of collick, she needed help, and she knew where to come to get it. Vet called.