pigeon :-(

[Kathrin]

Ok, maybe some of you can’t relate.
I love people as well as animals and try to help where I can.

Today I found a sick baby pigeon. It had something very wrong with its eye. I didn’t know what to do, have only been in this city about 3 weeks.
Tried to give water.
Took tangled up hair from its feet.
Suddenly the thought, maybe it would be easier if it died. Not just because it was suiffering, but probably mostly because I didn’t know what to do.

And then it died in my hands.
I don’t know if my thought caused it.
It was very sick, I know.
But I feel bad for having had the thought.

And of course I wonder about the sinfulness of it. Is that something for confession. Or not.
And how to live with this experience.

Kathrin

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

Ok, maybe some of you can’t relate.
I love people as well as animals and try to help where I can.

Today I found a sick baby pigeon. It had something very wrong with its eye. I didn’t know what to do, have only been in this city about 3 weeks.
Tried to give water.
Took tangled up hair from its feet.
Suddenly the thought, maybe it would be easier if it died. Not just because it was suiffering, but probably mostly because I didn’t know what to do.

And then it died in my hands.
I don’t know if my thought caused it.
It was very sick, I know.
But I feel bad for having had the thought.

And of course I wonder about the sinfulness of it. Is that something for confession. Or not.
And how to live with this experience.

Kathrin

My dear friend Kathrin

It’s not a sin. But we should love all Gods pets because He does. Also we honour the creator by loving His creation, and we are related to all things in our universe. God wants us to love all creation because this will greatly increase our capacity to love which is what we’re meant to do and this will increase our capacity to love God in heaven meaning a greater happiness.

I found a cricket in the shower yesterday and I was very careful to put it out lest it get washed down the drain. It was ok. Then when I got out I’d forgotten and did not see it and stood on it. I felt bad because I’d accidentally killed one of Gods pets whom He loves needlessly. There’s nothing wrong with loving Gods pets and all of creation. We should. But you don’t need confession.

May God bless you and hold you in the palm of His Hand always:thumbsup:
John

 

[Catholic90]

Suddenly the thought, maybe it would be easier if it died. Not just because it was suiffering, but probably mostly because I didn’t know what to do.

And then it died in my hands.
I don’t know if my thought caused it.

Kathrin

Your thought did NOT cause the bird to die. If your THOUGHTS were that powerful, think of what you could do!! They are not that powerful. (but wouldn’t it be fun if they were?!?)

I hope you thoroughly washed your hands afterwords. Birds, especially sick birds, can carry many diseases and sometime parasites.

 

[Kathrin]

I did wash my hands.

And then I tried to focus on something positive. The honey I had with me to give to an old and very poor woman.

I do love and care about animals. I rescue insects out of washbowls and tell people not to stand on snails and give little tired bees sugar so they can fly again. I really care a lot.

So I see a lot too. I can not just walk by.

By the way… just because I want back toward evening to see if the dead bird was still lying there, I got to talk to another very old woman who was talking to herself, and when she said she was hungry I got her a sandwich and some water, and then also two peaches from the market. So something good came out of it.
If you can see it that way.
Can we see it that way?

I felt bad this morning already I remember now! I am camping right now, and I was doing my laundry. There were two ants in my laundry and I was by the laundry basins and I wondered should I go back because of the ants so they find their way home. I decided to place them on my t shirt and hoped they would stay on me until I got back to the tent. I couldn’t see them anymore later.

Often people tell me not to go back because of every little thing. And I DID care. Sometimes the question is, how much can we do. If you’re on the way to the bus stop and your bus is coming and you have an ant on you from your garden, do you walk back or do you just drop it right there?
In that case I could imagine myself going back…

Kathrin

 

[marypar]

Hi Kathrin,
I can totally relate. As an animal lover, I am the lady who feeds the stray cats, throws peanuts to the squirrels and have picked up sick pigeons and brought them to the animal medical where they treat them and release them if they are healthy.

I hate killing insects too. But I have to admit I kill cockroaches if they are crawling in my kitchen, but if I see one in the laundry room or any other insect outside, I avoid stepping on it. Sometimes I see strange insects in my apartment and will catch them and release them outside.

And one time my husband killed a mouse in my apartment and I got hysterical screaming. I didn’t want him to kill it but catch it instead and release it. They are more afraid of us.

And one time in PA I went with my daughter and husband to a bird store and in the back of the room there was a huge snake in a tank and I saw a petrified mouse in the corner huddling in fear and didn’t really understand what was going on. When I realized the terror in the little creature was fear of being eaten alive, I lost it and ran out of the store and it ruined my entire trip (I cried for a long time). Looking back, I should have purchased the little guy and released it. (Yes, I know they would only have gotten another) -

maryann

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

My dear friends

Great to see some people who love Gods pets. A couple of good points I forgot on my post here may help convince conservative catholics to love Gods creation more are-

In His creation we can see traces of the creator and His infinite perfections. We can in this sense see God in His creation. Even an atom or molecule.
If we had an infinite mind we could know God completely by looking at an atom, let alone a creature. And we could know the big answer to every conceivable question, thought, experience etc - God is Love.

In my opinion all living things in our world are praying to God by doing His will. So why be cruel to our fellow creatures or needlessly harm anything if their just doing Gods will, and praying perfectly 24 hrs? It’s not a sin but there are negative consequences with the equilibrium in our world. We were made to be loving beings like God, and should love Gods creation as said earlier.

So you should not think yourself strange if you do. Your normal.

May God and your Blessed Mother watch over you and protect you:thumbsup:
John

 

[Kathrin]

hey, cockroaches can also be caught and put outside.

John Russell, thank you for the wise words.


I think hurting an animal without reason IS a sin?
I am not sure.
If not, what does it make it not a sin?

Kathrin

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

hey, cockroaches can also be caught and put outside.

John Russell, thank you for the wise words.


I think hurting an animal without reason IS a sin?
I am not sure.
If not, what does it make it not a sin?

Kathrin

My dear friend Kathrin

It’s not a sin. It can unbalance the equilibrium because it’s unnatural but no sin. If the creature has a monetary value such as being a pet then to deprive someone of their rightful property is a sin of varying degrees. As said living unnaturally has serious onsequences even if there’s no sin. Such as tidal waves, tornadoes, earhquakes etc for the extreme cases. All our problems are because of sin and living out of harmony with nature.

May God bless you and the friend of nature St Francis:thumbsup:
John

 

[Kathrin]

What exactly makes something a sin, can anzbody explain that?
If something is not in the catechism, but feels wrong, is it not a sin? We are supposed to listen to our conscience, right?
Oh, and unnecessarily hurting animals IS in the catechism, I think…

I have another related problem right now.
There was an insect by a wash basin at the campsite where I am staying right now.
I think it was already dead as it was in soapy water but I wasn’t totally sure.
I usually rescue insects.
There was a mother who helped her little child wash his hands at that wash basin.
So I waited until they were done and then got the insect out of the water.
I think that was because I was kind of ashamed to do this.
I feel bad ab out this now.
I don’t think it was a mortal sin?
But I feel bad. I should not NOT do something I think is good for fear somebody else might look at me weird.
Ok the insect was very likely already dead but I cannot be sure.

Kathrin

 

[thistle]

hey, cockroaches can also be caught and put outside.

John Russell, thank you for the wise words.


I think hurting an animal without reason IS a sin?
I am not sure.
If not, what does it make it not a sin?

Kathrin

Cockroaches, mosquitos and rats should be eliminated from the face of the earth. It is certainly not a sin to kill them and in fact it should be a sin not to kill them for the disease and health problems they can cause humans.

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

What exactly makes something a sin, can anzbody explain that?
If something is not in the catechism, but feels wrong, is it not a sin? We are supposed to listen to our conscience, right?
Oh, and unnecessarily hurting animals IS in the catechism, I think…

I have another related problem right now.
There was an insect by a wash basin at the campsite where I am staying right now.
I think it was already dead as it was in soapy water but I wasn’t totally sure.
I usually rescue insects.
There was a mother who helped her little child wash his hands at that wash basin.
So I waited until they were done and then got the insect out of the water.
I think that was because I was kind of ashamed to do this.
I feel bad ab out this now.
I don’t think it was a mortal sin?
But I feel bad. I should not NOT do something I think is good for fear somebody else might look at me weird.
Ok the insect was very likely already dead but I cannot be sure.

Kathrin

Dear Kathrin

Perhaps this will help.

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. Causing unnecessary pain to animals. Man has no duties toward animals because they have no independent personalities. They may therefore be used for any ethical purpose. It is sinful, however, to cause an animal needless suffering. The sinfulness does not lie in the violation of an animal’s rights but in a person’s irrational conduct, since reason forbids causing unnecessary pain and death. Moreover, cruelty to animals has a brutalizing effect on the tormentor.

SIN. “A word, deed or desire in opposition to the eternal law” (St. Augustine). Sin is a deliberate transgression of a law of God, which identifies the four essentials of every sin. A law is involved, implying that there are physical laws that operate with necessity, and moral laws that can be disregarded by human beings. God is offended, so that the divine dimension is never absent from any sin. Sin is a transgression, since Catholicism holds that grace is resistible and the divine will can be disobeyed. And the transgression is deliberate, which means that a sin is committed whenever a person knows that something is contrary to the law of God and then freely does the action anyway. (Etym. Old English synn, syn, sin; Old High German sunta, suntea, perhaps to Latin sons, guilty.)

CONSCIENCE. The judgment of the practical intellect deciding, from general principles of faith and reason, the goodness or badness of a way of acting that a person now faces.
It is an operation of the intellect and not of the feelings or even of the will. An action is right or wrong because of objective principles to which the mind must subscribe, not because a person subjectively feels that way or because his will wants it that way.
Conscience, therefore, is a specific act of the mind applying its knowledge to a concrete moral situation. What the mind decides in a given case depends on principles already in the mind.
These principles are presupposed as known to the mind, either from the light of natural reason reflecting on the data of creation, or from divine faith responding to God’s supernatural revelation. Conscience does not produce these principles; it accepts them. Nor does conscience pass judgment on the truths of reason and divine faith; it uses them as the premises from which to conclude whether something should be done (or should have been done) because it is good, or should be omitted (or should have been omitted) because it is bad. Its conclusions also apply to situations where the mind decides that something is permissible or preferable but not obligatory.
Always the role of conscience is to decide subjectively on the ethical propriety of a specific action, here and now, for this person, in these circumstances. But always, too, the decision is a mental conclusion derived from objective norms that conscience does not determine on its own, receiving it as given by the Author of nature and divine grace.

continued-

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

the continuation-

Friends of God > The Christian’s Hope > Number 217http://www.escrivaworks.org/images/misc/pixtrans.gifhttp://www.escrivaworks.org/images/misc/pixtrans.gif217http://www.escrivaworks.org/images/misc/pixtrans.gifI ought to put you on your guard against a trick that Satan does not hesitate to use in order to rob us of our peace. He never takes a holiday! A time may come when he sows doubts in our minds, tempting us to think that we are slipping sadly backwards and are making scarcely any progress. The conviction may grow upon us that, in spite of all our efforts to improve, we are getting worse. I can assure you that normally this pessimistic judgement is mere fantasy, a deception that needs to be rejected. What has happened, as a rule, is that our soul has become more attentive, our conscience more sensitive, and our love more demanding. It can also be that the light of grace is shining more intensely and exposing to our view many details that would otherwise remain unnoticed in the shadows. In any case, we have to examine our uneasiness carefully, because through these insights Our Lord is asking us to be more humble or more generous. It is good to remember that God in his providence is continuously leading us forward and he spares no effort, whether in the form of portentous signs or of tiny miracles, to make his children progress.

Militia est vita hominis super terram, et sicut dies mercenarii, dies eius. Man’s life on earth is warfare, and his days are spent under the burden of work. No one escapes this law, not even the easygoing who try to turn a deaf ear to it. They desert the ranks of Christ, and then take up other battles to satisfy their laziness, their vanity, or their petty ambitions. They become enslaved to their every whim.

Since to be in a state of struggle is part and parcel of the human condition, let us try to fulfil our obligations with determination. Let us pray and work with good will, with upright motives and with our sights set on what God wants. This way our longing for Love will be satisfied and we shall progress along the path to sanctity, even if we find at the end of the day that we still have a long way to go.

Renew your decision each morning, with a very determined Serviam!, I will serve you, Lord! Renew your resolution not to give in, not to give way to laziness or idleness; to face up to your duties with greater hope and more optimism, convinced that if we are defeated in some small skirmish we can overcome this setback by making a sincere act of love.

Our consciences need instruction and formation in order to be reliable too. Study is needed.

May God bless you:thumbsup:
John

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

Cockroaches, mosquitos and rats should be eliminated from the face of the earth. It is certainly not a sin to kill them and in fact it should be a sin not to kill them for the disease and health problems they can cause humans.

My dear friend

These creatures can be but a means to deliver the punishments we bring upon ourselves.

God bless you:thumbsup:
John

 

[baltobetsy]

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. Causing unnecessary pain to animals. Man has no duties toward animals because they have no independent personalities. They may therefore be used for any ethical purpose. It is sinful, however, to cause an animal needless suffering. The sinfulness does not lie in the violation of an animal’s rights but in a person’s irrational conduct, since reason forbids causing unnecessary pain and death. Moreover, cruelty to animals has a brutalizing effect on the tormentor.

This quote from John’s post is the heart of the matter. God gave mankind dominion over the rest of creation. Our only duty to insects, birds and other animals is not to cause them needless suffering. We should not pull the wings off a fly before we kill it. But we certainly have the right to kill it.

Anything that you do as a kindness to an animal, then, is completely optional - a morally neutral act. Your embarrassment over doing a morally neutral act is also morally neutral. It is also quite natural. Plenty of people hold a different opinion about how to treat animals, birds and bugs. As long as there is no brutality, they have a perfect right to that opinion, as you do to yours. If you think you are in the company of someone who holds a view radically different from yours, it is natural to fear that they might find you a little nutty. It is perfectly fine to do your act of kindness in private.

You have a very big heart, Kathrin.

Betsy