The Father Ángel highlighted this Saturday in the traditional **blessing of animals at the church of San Antón in Madrid**, which brought together hundreds of people with a variety of animals, that “loneliness is not cured with alcohol and pills” but with love and companionship, like that provided by domestic animals.
In a society where it is said that “**there are more dogs than children**,” many people have come with their companion animals, including turtles and even a snail, and “even with their mobile phones because their animal has died” and they come to have them blessed with “the gadget,” he told EFE.
It shows that “all of us have an inner life and that some, even though sometimes they boast of being agnostics, atheists, and not believing in God, sometimes believe more than those of us who say we believe,” the founder of Messengers of Peace has added.
In addition to believing in God, one must believe “in men and in the things that surround us, also in companion animals, in flowers, in plants and in so many things,” and be capable of “loving and stopping fighting,” without forgetting reality, “that there are vulnerable people who have even died of cold in the street.”
Faced with this, there are people who “take care of animals, taking them out even though it sometimes takes effort and work, and who show affection to those animals too,” according to the father for whom “more affection should be shown to those who are not animals, especially the vulnerable.”
“I wish we loved them as much as we love animals,” continues the father who has called for “loving everyone, animals, but especially human people,” because the true issues “are not those problems that sometimes appear on the front pages,” among which he highlights loneliness.
“People sometimes don’t feel like living, and it even comes to taking their own lives. This has a remedy, and that is companionship, love, looking out for one another. I hope we are capable of giving each other good mornings and good nights.”
“Among the most striking animals, in addition to the typical dogs and cats, there was **a large snail named Charlie**, three years old, who has already exceeded the expected lifespan by a year. ‘Perhaps blessings are doing him good,’ said the animal’s owner, whom his daughters found in a park after school.”
RD/Efe
English version translated with AI