We’ve all been surprised and delighted by the response this service has received from the people of Belfast and beyond. And, looking down the cathedral this afternoon, it’s really an amazing sight to behold! Talk about all creatures great and small: I’m just glad the dinosaurs are extinct! 
This service is meant to be fun, but also makes a serious point about the place our pets have in our lives. In so many ways they add to our wellbeing, calming us when we’re upset, listening to us rant and rave, enjoying special moments of joy, and walking with us through illness and bereavement. 
So we give thanks for them all: large, small, furry, feathery, scaly, crawly, slithery, scampery, gallopy… And we bless them. 
In spiritual terms a blessing is an opportunity to thank and praise God for something or someone, and to wish them well. Blessing our pets is not intended to be a gimmick or a magic charm, but to recognise their value in our eyes, and in God’s too, for they are part of the wonderful world in which we live. Blessing them is but a reflection of the place they have in our hearts, of the regard we hold them in, of the good they do us. 
And blessing them is maybe a way of seeking a blessing for ourselves and each other, for we all know that our pets give so much more to us than we can ever give to them. They will pass the blessing forward to us, their owners and keepers. For our pets to be blessed they will need us to be blessed also. So this service is for you, their owners, too. 
In Ireland, the blessing of animals has a long tradition. There have been blessings of crops, herds and flocks for generations. And of course, in times past, people would have brought their dogs to church. It sounds awfully quaint to us. But I guess that’s one of the reasons they used incense in church- at times the smell must have been quite overpowering! So we aren’t doing anything particularly new today, we’re just focussing on our domestic pets.
Whilst it isn’t considered the done thing to bring livestock to church these days, there’s another reason why today’s service is important. In the modern world in which we live we are faced with the very real negative effects that the human species is having on the environment. We are the single greatest threat to life on this planet. The 20th century has seen the greatest numbers of animal species becoming extinct. The 21st seriously faces us with the prospect of yet more extinctions, of animals whose existence we take for granted but who, without urgent care and preventative action, will become relics of history, preserved only in photographs, films and skeletal remains.
Without wishing to become a party-pooper on a day of celebration, I want to refer to one of the inspirations of today’s service: St Francis of Assisi. Francis was an amazing man; a flamboyant, emotional, eccentric genius of a human being. He was convinced that the Christian faith, focussed and based upon the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, embraced all of existence; all the created world. 
In a crude unscientific fashion Francis was feeling his way towards what we might call a recognition of the inter-connectedness of life on this planet. Listen to his statement and see what you make of it: “If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” And then catch the eye of your pet…
One of my favourite living human beings is Sir David Attenborough, who has brought the awareness of the complexity, fragility, majesty and wonder of all forms of life on our planet into our living rooms, our souls and our consciences. And with that awareness comes responsibility to protect.
And so, I hope you’ll indulge me if I lapse into theological talk: God gave to our first parents the animals when creation lived in peace. We are called to be peacemakers with each other and the whole of creation. Part of that peace-making is our connection with our pets. And, if there’s anything our world needs these days, it’s peace. 
So today, when you hug, snuggle or hold your pet, please pray for the peace of the world. Maybe the love you have for your pet, and the love they have for you, will add to the love that God has for the world, and arouse a blessing from the hand of the Almighty.