Your Faith Has Made You Well

ST. PAUL’S ON-THE-HILL EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN OSSINING, NY, Sunday, April 9, 2016

The Rev. Chris Jones*

For My Animal Brothers and Sisters and Their Human Families,

I had a doggy friend named Pucci – named for Puccini, the opera composer. He was the beautiful German shepherd family member of my friend’s Liz and John. He was the head of hospitality whenever you entered their Shakespeare theatre off Broadway in NYC. (He had a bit of Episcopalian in him, I think, because the theatre was housed in a space owned and rented out from St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Some of us know it as “Smoky Mary’s” for their love of Anglican ceremony and incense!)

Pucci became part of Liz and John’s family in an unorthodox and unexpected way. During a theatre board meeting one night, Pucci came in with a member of the board and announced that this dog needed a home, and she thought Pucci should go home with John and Liz. Surprised and without a plan, or a second thought, they brought Pucci to their apartment because he needed a place to heal. Pucci had been abused. He was found in a backyard in Detroit, attached to a chain he had pulled on so long that it had started to grow into the skin around his neck.