Julian’s Cat
I’ve had the most interesting prayer partner for the last several years: my cat. My spouse Deb and I actually have two dogs and two cats. Every morning when I get up one of our cats, Jessie, follows me downstairs to the kitchen, waits for me to get my coffee, then goes to the study with me to pray.
Jessie is a pretty wild kitty, chasing things that are not there and batting important things like credit cards under the bookcase (which we find weeks later). I am always amazed at how quiet and still she becomes during my prayer time. It’s like she can feel the presence of the Spirit in the room.
Sometimes when my prayer becomes intense, Jessie will get in my lap and place her paw on my chest and look intently into my eyes and purr softly. In those moments I believe she, in her own way, is joining her prayer to mine.
The fourteenth century English mystic and anchoress, Julian
of Norwich, had a cat. An anchoress was
a woman so devoted to a life of prayer and holiness that she was willing to
live a solitary life in an “anchorhold.” Many of these anchorholds
were attached to a church in the middle of a town. The anchoress not only devoted herself to her
own interior life, but she prayed constantly for the church and the town. I can imagine that Julian’s cat was not only
a source of company fo
The Bible reminds us that humans aren’t the only ones who have a relationship with God. The Psalmist has a beautiful way of expressing this:
Your steadfast love, O Lord , extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O Lord. (36: 5-6)
The apostle Paul tells us that all of creation “groans for
redemption” (Romans