all dogs go to heaven

 

All Dogs Go To Heaven is the name of a cartoon film that came out some years ago.

I've never seen it but the title has a certain je ne sais quoi.

I thought of it this week when I encountered a broadcast by loopy internet nun Mother Miriam in which she appeared to suggest animals can't go to heaven.

By loopy I mean heroic by the way.

I use the terms loopy and heroic interchangeably for nuns,

And I'm not far wrong.

But the heaven business,

Mother Miriam quoted someone who had said dogs could go to heaven only if they were capable of accepting Jesus into their hearts.

Mother M commented: "Obviously dogs can't do that."

I'm not sure how she could know this.

Ive been acquainted with some charaacterful dogs from Paddy Pup to Glen to various Jesses, a Pancho, a Mad Max, a Mollie and sundry others.

I always theought they praised God by their very being.

They certainly made me feel like praising God for their very being.

Maybe Mother M should have a word with Saint Francis Of Asissi who tradition records used to preach to the birds telling them how much God loved them as evidenced by their beauty and perfect form and blissful flying and comfy nests and so on.

The question of animals going to heaven has interested me since childhood.

I always wanted them to be there.

When I was young I read a James Herriot vet book where an old lady was sad and asked the vet if her dogs would go to heaven and James Herriot told her: "I believe any creature that can love can go heaven and nobody who has seen your dogs could doubt that they love you."

I like the cut of James Herriot's jib.

Since heaven was made for man  (that is to say for me) and I want animals to be there maybe the greatness of God encompasses this.

In truth I cannot set any limit to his greatnesss or love or generosity.

I mean there can be no suggestion that God would not be able to give animals eternal souls.

If I can believe human beings have eternal souls why not the animals!

The real challenge is to believe in eternal life for me,

Once I believe that men have eternal souls, the rest follows easily.

God seems to have given human beings many lessons through the animals.

Sometimes kids with autism walk free of it simply through the love a a family dog.

I've seen the loneliness of elderly people made as nothing when they saw my dogs coming up the avenue.

There's bits in the Bible where Jesus says: "Look at the birds flying south for the winter. I tell you not one of them drops from the sky without your Father In Heaven knowing."

He also says: "Look at the sparrows which are sold two a penny in the market place. Not one of them is unknown to the Father."

If God knows every single sparrow on earth, I would hazard maybe the sparrows have souls.

There's a bit in the Old Testament Book Of Job where is complaining to God for not smiting a city after God had compelled Job to prophecy its destruction. And the book records God as saying: "Why would you want me to destroy it? Many people live there and much cattle."

If God cares about the cattle in this way, well maybe baby, maybe they have souls.

I would contend that when God makes something it has an eternal quality to it.

Even atheistic scientists suggest that the phyical substances we encounter in the universe are indestructible, ie that we can neither create matter nor destroy it. They say the same thing about energy,

If God has put lasting qualities into matter and energy how much more so may he have done so with the spirits of living creatures.

A long time ago a revered friend said to me on this subject: "Jesus did not die for dogs."

I replied: "But his death has redeemed the whole creation."

A few nights ago I was asking God to send me sweet dreams intead of the usual joyless ones I get.

I dreamed that night that my deceased Uncle Scutch had come to me. He'd brought one of my old dogs, Pancho, with him,

I was quite delighted by the whole thing.

No disrespect to the Uncle but the fact that he brought Pancho really crowned it.

God has given the animals dignity and made it a crime for any of us to deliberately mistreat them. He teaches us lessons through them about love and life and helping each other. I feel that there are great scientific discoveries waiting to be found through animals but they won't be found by torturing them in laboratories.

Through loving insight, wisdom and observation of what is before our eyes, we may yet find ways through the animals to heal mental pain, cancers, dementia and other forms of suffering.

The animals praise God with their voices and their goodness and their work and their companionability and by their very being.

Listen to the birds' dawn chorus or their evening serenade.

They are rejoicing in God's glory.

I think they go to heaven.