For years, I pondered the question, “Why did Francis do all of this?” What special intuition caused Francis to address creatures as “brother” or “sister?” At some point I arrived at the conviction, which I’ve never abandoned, that somewhere along the way it dawned on St. Francis that all creatures (whether human or nonhuman) belong to one family of creation. “Brother” and “sister” are familiar terms, after all, which suggests that all creatures are part of one family. Will I See My Dog in Heaven? grew out of that conviction. I believe the book’s subtitle, God’s Saving Love for the Whole Family of Creation, summarizes well the central theme of the book.
Friar Jack and a special friend. (Photo by Frank Jasper, O.F.M.)
My short response to this line of thinking is this: Consider the story of Adam and Eve before their disobedience as well as the story of the animals, the birds, the trees and plants in the Garden of Eden. Not only Adam and Eve, but the other creatures as well seemed to find peace and happiness in that first paradise. Why then would God—or anyone else—want to exclude them from the paradise that is yet to come? Thus, I would have no argument with Christians who believe that the animals and other creatures are with God in heaven, just as they were in God’s presence in the story of the original paradise.
In fact, the more I studied the Bible, our Judeo-Christian tradition and the life of St. Francis, the more hints and evidence I found that other creatures besides humans are called to participate in God’s plan of salvation. It’s true that we know very little in detail about the kind of life we are destined to spend with God in heaven or how animals and other creatures will be included in the picture. In the 10 chapters of my book, however, I think you will find much good evidence from Scripture, Catholic teaching and other sources showing that God desires the whole family of creation—both humans and animals—to be saved and to live happily with God in the life to come.
To provide you with just one sample of such evidence from sacred Scripture, think of the story of Noah and the Ark. There we discover that God wishes to save not only Noah’s family from the great flood but all the animals as well. And after the floodwaters dried up, God made a solemn covenant not only with Noah and his clan but with all the animals and other creatures that “Never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood” (Gn 9:10-11). The story strongly hints that it is not God’s plan to save humankind apart from the other creatures. He wants to save the other creatures as well. We are all in the same boat, so to speak. Isn’t it curious that God’s saving perspective is often much broader than our own?
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