Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Reece Derrick, 6, holds his panda bear hamster Bamboo's cage as he waits for a turn at St. Philip's Blessing of the Animals service.

Donna Abbott holds Trinity while awaiting a blessing Sunday at St. Philip Lutheran Church. People brought many different kinds of pets.

The Rev. David Derrick, the senior pastor of St. Philip Lutheran Church in Roanoke, lays his hand Sunday on a horse named Skye during the church's annual Blessing of Animals, a celebration observed in honor of St. Francis of Assisi.

The Rev. David Derrick (hands at top) blesses a gecko named Merrily, owned by 10-year-old Allen Britt. Derrick said the blessing of the animals is really about celebrating the companionship that animals give to families.

Jennifer Thomas figures "everybody needs blessing."

Which was why she brought 3-year-old Gabriella the goose to St. Philip Lutheran Church on Sunday afternoon.

It was the North Roanoke County congregation's fifth annual Blessing of the Animals service -- though the first to include a goose.

Gabriella wears a special collar that holds a diaper in place so she can live in the house with Thomas, who acquired her when she was just 3 days old.

And they share their home with lots of other pets -- parrots, dogs, a chinchilla.

Sunday's event was a haven for those with a similar love for animals.

Gabriella was one of about 30 pets who came with their owners to the short outdoor service administered by three Lutheran ministers, including St. Philip's David Derrick.

Derrick said he originally had the idea for the service, but that parishioners Dedi Spradlin and Shan Sirry are now the driving forces behind the annual event.

Dogs make up the largest contingent of pets each year, Sirry said, perhaps because they're among the easiest to take out in public.

But Sunday's assortment also included cats, at least one fish and a container of brine shrimp -- commonly called by their trademarked name, Sea-Monkeys.

And there were two of Spradlin's horses.

"I was born addicted to animals," she said.

Her parents bought her her first horse when she was 6. She has been a horse owner for all but two of the 47 years since then, she said.

The blessing service is an important reminder to human beings of their responsibility to the other animals in God's creation, Spradlin said. And it serves as an outreach, "a way to have church without walls."

Regulars include not only church members, but people who live nearby and just read about the service on the church's streetside sign.

The event is always held near the church's Oct. 4 celebration of the life of St. Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century Italian monk who abandoned wealth for a life of simplicity and poverty.

The founder of the Franciscan order, he is also widely remembered for his love of animals, which he called his brothers and sisters.

"People have a real passion for their animals," Derrick said. Even the ones that sometimes bite, and sometimes even after they've died.

"I have blessed ashes," he said. Taken aback at first, "I gave thanks for the life that they represented," he said.

While the animals are the focus of the service, "we're really blessing the relationship and companionship" that pets provide, he said.

"They are part of people's families."

And surveys suggest that increasing numbers of people believe that animals will be part of the afterlife.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has no doctrine on that point, Derrick said. "We just say it's up to God."

But Sirry doesn't have any doubts.

"I think they wait for us at the rainbow bridge," she said, referring to a popular description of departed pets waiting for their human companions at a bridge just this side of heaven.

The animals are all healthy and strong, and once reunited with their former owners, "you cross rainbow bridge together."

"They give us unconditional love," she said.