Herding theology cats
Herding theology cats
Even trickier than regular cats but also more fun ...
Fellow Pilgrims,
Some of you know Dwight, my #theologycat.
Today, he is trying to herd some of his colleagues. It’s difficult work, but some cat has to do it.
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The herder’s CATechism, by Dwight
Q: What is the chief end of cats?
A: That all might perceive “God's light about [them] both wax and fire.”
Q: How doth God execute his decrees?
A: In many modes, including the catty and the catechetical, the catholic and the cataclysmic.
Q: What supplication ought a supplicat make?
A: For furry things and dappled things, feathered things, and cream. For sunny seats, and purring days, and safe places to stretch and sleep.
Q: Why did God create cats?
A: As a challenge to human assumptions about domestication and dominion. Also, for delight.
Q: Can cats sin?
A: While humans, and not cats, are responsible for sin, cats participate in the fallenness of all creation. Ironically, it is the human, and not the cat, who must confess, “ego peccator.”
Q: Are claws evidence of fallenness?
A: By no means.
Q: What about allergies to cats?
A: This catechist judges that likely.
Q: Should cats be declawed?
A: Contra naturam.
Q: May cats receive the sacraments?
A: No, and cats are fine with that, being perfectly content in being cats.
Q: What about kitten baptisms?
A: They are gorgeous in literary context but should not be literalized in the life of the church.
Q: What about pet blessings then?
A: Yes, please bless the pets.
Q: When does the pontificat speak with authority?
A: When she speaks ex cathedra, which she never does, because she likes to stay inside, hunting unwitting church mice.
Q: Should a cat eat a church mouse who has nibbled at the sacrament?
A: Theologically trained cats abstain from such mice, not wishing to weigh in on eucharistic debates.
Q: Are cats biblical?
A: Cats are clearly biblical. We should not neglect the Magnificat, who purrs while Mary sings, nor should we ignore the leopard in Isaiah 11. The ancient Israelites, while captive in Egypt, surely rejected the worship of cats, while cheerfully petting the local cat population. The most important biblical cat is the Lion of Judah, through whom all things, cats included, were made.
Q: Who is the patron saint of cats?
A: Dame Julian of Norwich, who may well have been aided by a cat in recording her Revelations of Divine Love.
Q: Will there be cats in the life of the world to come?
A: What God has created, God will redeem.
Q: Will kingdom cats have wings?
A: Certainly not. Kingdom cats are cats, not birds or angels. Purrousicats will retain their purrs, so they can join in the eternal chorus.
Consider yourself catechized.
Grab print products of the theology cats and other bits of theological madness at my Redbubble store.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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Do you by any chance know Kurt Lightner (an American artist expat in Sweden)? He wrote a song in college all about cats and I feel like it would be an appropriate accompaniment to this post.
Also, re: cats for delight:
After college and before a half-decade in the UK, I worked as a nanny. One day when the baby I cared for was old enough to talk a little (he was much more fun and) we went outside and sat on the front step in the sunshine. Someone else's cat walked by across the street. The child said (and I have to write it down in poem form):
Kitty.
God made.
Kitty.
Happy God.
I'm a dog person, but I've never forgotten that and I absolutely love it still.