万花筒 2009-05-07&05-09 宠物也祈祷？

Well, we all think of our pets as members of the family, right? Well, now, some churches across the country are welcoming pets into the pews during church services. The Church of the Holy Trinity in New York city is one of those churches, Father Michael Philips joins me now to explain, why exactly they're doing this. Good Morning to you, Father Philips?

 

Good morning, Dave, how are you?

 

I am great, and this is such a great program. You said it's been going on for at least 15 years at your church, why did you, why did they start doing it, and why do you think it's been such a tremendous success?

 

Well, it's started long before I came here, I've been at this church for years and every year around St. Francis Day early in October, they do a service called blessing¹ of the animals which is quite popular around the country, but here at this church, it just caught on, because animals are so important especially dogs and cats are important to lives of so many people in New York.

 

So, describe the scene, because in my head, I am imagining everyone sitting there in the pews, their dogs and cats or mixture, and there's barking, there is meowing, there is complete chaos², is that what breaks out when this happens?

 

No, you have the wrong image of that, what we find is, first of all, dogs and cats are welcomed in all of our services year around,(wonderful.) especially on St. Francis Day, we will have, you know, 50, 60, 80 pets here and they are so well behaved, they are, for whatever reason, in church, the animals calm down, they are quiet, they are attentive³, we'd never had a single problem with any the animal in church.

 

Oh, Father Philips, they are listening to you, they’re trying to pay attention, you say, any animal is permissible⁴, if you had birds, if you had ferrets  , as Clayton has suggested, what types of animals join the cats and dogs?

 

In addition to cats and dogs, we have birds we have turtles, we have ferrets  , we have gerbils, we have animals in cages, we have insects that come, reptile  .

 

That is outstanding, and I have to mention that you said , people can also bring a stuffed animal to represent their pets, but pets you have there, a kitten, a puppy⁵, and an adult dog are up for adoption⁶, tell us about that through bideawee.org and to introduce them.

 

-Well, this is Petty⁷, and this is , I figure, Tiger, tiger is a puppy, and there are  2 people from a shelter here in Manhattan, Alex and Maria, and there I don't know all about, but I know that they... from the shelter, you can adopt an animal and have that special relationship by just going to a local shelter.

 

Ok, great, Father Philips, we appreciated and it's a great story. It's going on in New York, it’s going on in Omaha  , it’s going on in Boston, you can adopt those pets through bideawee.org, thank you for joining us this morning.

 

1 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

2 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

3 attentive   

adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的

参考例句：

• She was very attentive to her guests.她对客人招待得十分周到。
• The speaker likes to have an attentive audience.演讲者喜欢注意力集中的听众。

4 permissible   

adj.可允许的，许可的

参考例句：

• Is smoking permissible in the theatre?在剧院里允许吸烟吗？
• Delay is not permissible,even for a single day.不得延误，即使一日亦不可。

5 puppy   

n.小狗，幼犬

参考例句：

• You must school your puppy to obey you.你要训练你的小狗服从你。
• Their lively puppy frisks all over the house.他们的小狗在屋里到处欢快地蹦跳。

6 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

7 petty   

adj.小的，琐碎的，不重要的，心胸狭窄的

参考例句：

• The removal of petty restrictions has made life easier.对一些琐碎规定的取消使生活更自在了。
• It was petty of her not to accept the apology.她气量太小，连道歉也不接受。