Matthew 25:40
May/June 2005
A resting place for all God’s creatures
BY NICOLE SEIFERTH
It is natural and right to grieve over the loss of a pet that we loved, as God loves. Would the God of love expect anything less of us?
It was a question that resonated with the people who gathered at the Church of St. Andrew, Staten Island, on April 22 for the consecration of a Cemetery for All God’s Creatures.
Over 100 people, including members of the larger Staten Island community, St. Andrew’s parishioners and a variety of four-legged companions, attended the consecration.
In addition to celebrating the opening of the cemetery, a number of pets’ ashes were interred during the ceremony. June Cupo laid to rest the ashes of Truth, a Tibetan spaniel which belonged to the late Bishop Walter Dennis, and St. Andrew’s buried several parish cats. The Girard family, St. Andrew’s parishioners, interred the ashes of their dogs, Fluffy and Rusty, while Bill and June Leonard, who heard about the cemetery through a newspaper article, buried the ashes of their dog, Kerry, in a handpicked spot under a tree.
Old, crumbling headstones in St. Andrew’s small cemetery attest to the parish’s nearly 300 year history and also illustrate a challenge that faced the parish – what to do with the remaining land in the cemetery? There was not enough space to accommodate many more traditional burial plots but it was holy ground that could and should, the parish felt, be used to the advantage of the church and the community it serves. And so the “Cemetery for All God’s Creatures” was born. The cemetery holds 850 plots, with each plot able to accommodate the ashes of four pets.
“Pets are an important part of our lives,” said the Rev. Michael Delaney, rector of St. Andrew’s, “and this cemetery is one way of honoring what they have meant to us and our families.”
“We’ve been charged with taking care of these animals; the bond is something that goes with that care,” said the Rev. Rayner W. Hesse, Jr, from whose book We Thank You, God for These, most of the consecration service was adopted.
When a pet dies, Hesse said, “People don’t know what to do, with no place to work through their grief. Having a [pet] cemetery is an important part of grieving, of healing.”
Dr. Peter Dodd, a Staten Island veterinarian who attended the consecration with Burt, a German short-haired pointer, called the cemetery, “A wonderful thing. It answers a need for people who have lost their pets.”
Delaney also pointed out some of the benefits of the cemetery to the parish, which calls itself “the friendliest church in the valley.”
"It’s really part of evangelism, opening us up to the outsider to the person who may not come to the church,” he said.
Judy Girard, who serves as a member of St. Andrew’s vestry and interred the ashes of her two dogs during the ceremony, noted that the parish community has been active and enthusiastic in making the cemetery a reality and that it is a project that will benefit St. Andrew’s for years to come. Funds from the sale of burial plots will be used to help renovate St. Andrew’s in time for the parish’s 300th anniversary in 2008.
“We want to ensure that St. Andrew’s flourishes in the future,” Girard said.
The cemetery is something that benefits St. Andrew’s and brings parishioners and outsiders together, all incorporated…and I think that’s so important.”
At the end of the service, Bishop E. Don Taylor prayed, “…keep us on the path of companionship, obedience, loyalty and a zeal for life that the animals who are our companions have taught us. May the gifts they have so freely given us be given to them as they live on in our memories eternally.”
With St. Andrew’s Cemetery for All God’s Creatures, the innumerable gifts of well-loved pets can be celebrated and remembered in a holy space long after their passing.
The Rev. Rayner W. Hesse, Jr. and two of his four-legged companions.
Creatures of all
ages and species attended the consecration service.
Jean Beck and Marguerite Meldrum with the ashes of Gizmo, who was the parish
cat.