Opening My Heart to One Heart: A Journey to a Catholic Compassion for Animals Group
By guest contributor Patrick J. McGrath
We are thrilled to share this guest post from Patrick McGrath. We connected with Patrick following our launch and learned about his parish’s beautiful group, One Heart. Read on to learn more.
Sister Barbara Blesse, OP, Patrick McGrath, and Syd Crowder with group sign
I have always felt that God’s grace has manifested itself in my life through relationships with animals, particularly the pets with whom I’ve had the privilege of coexisting. In a companion animal’s unconditional love for me, I see a small reflection of (or, to put it more reconditely, I see adumbrated) God’s immense and infinite love for His creation. Some people have been blessed to find in marriage a type of God’s love for His church, of God’s love for individual believers. As a single person, I have not been privileged to experience the typological significance of marriage. But that does not mean that God has not made intimations of His love available through other relationships in my life, particularly those with animals. I cannot attribute my ability to apprehend the reflection of God’s love for His creation in a companion animal’s devotion—and I am far from the only animal lover to grasp it—to anything other than God’s mind-boggling mercy. There are no corners of our life too small, too mundane, there are no relationships too taken for granted that God will not ennoble, enrich, and ignite with a love past the bounds of knowing. Everything proceeds from, and leads us back to, God. That is the truth I hear in Jenny’s meow, the insight I see in her bringing me her little green mouse toy, and the reflection that moves me when I think of Harley, Jimmy, Luke, Freckles, Chester, and Annie.
But how could I communicate and share this perspective and, what’s more, transform these thoughts and feelings into a kind of ministry?
In 2022, Saint Francis Xavier Church in Carbondale had formed an environmental group in response to Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, a 2015 encyclical exhorting Catholics and all people of good will to care for our common home. It was through my experiences in this group that I began to contemplate the possibility of forming another assembly, one that would address more explicitly care for animal life. Our Care for Creation Team helped me to articulate and understand more fully what had always been in my heart: “Ever since the creation of the world the invisible attributes of God’s eternal power and divine nature have been clearly understood and perceived through the things he has made” (Romans 1:20). God enlivens all things, from nature to animals to people. Though the Care for Creation Team has played a vital role in awakening my faith to an ecologically-centered spirituality, there was always some yearning that seemed to elude even the theology of Laudato Si’; or, perhaps more accurately, there was a sensibility that lurked in the background of Laudato Si’ that I wished to bring to the forefront.
Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Carbondale, Illinois, home to the One Heart ministry
In later winter 2026, I approached our Pastoral Associate, Sister Barbara Blesse, OP, with the idea of forming a group aimed at promoting compassion towards animals. Sister Barbara could not have been more supportive, helpful, and understanding. Having served as the former chair of our Care for Creation Team, Sister helped me realize the connection between this animal compassion group and Pope Francis’s epoch-making document. The name of our group, One Heart, comes from a sentence in Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’: “We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people.” Initially, the group was going to focus exclusively on animals. The more I thought about this quotation, though, and the wisdom it possesses, it seemed that perhaps we should emphasize compassion towards both people and animals; that is, we should make explicit a link between treating both people and animals humanely, compassionately, lovingly. After all, (as I waxed poetic about above) it seems to me that we are called as Christians to view God’s love as the animating principle of all relationality.
“We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people.” - Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 92.
But the coupling of people and animals also stems from a particular experience I had with a man I’ll refer to as Allen. He was a resident of the Good Samaritan House, a place for the unhoused to find shelter and food, in Carbondale. Several cats had taken up residence under one of the sheds behind the Good Samaritan House. One day I approached Allen as he was feeding those cats, asking if he needed more food. He said that more food would be welcome, and we struck up a conversation about some of the cats, their quirks and unique characteristics. In the ensuing months, I would drop off cat food whenever Allen called me, secure in the hope that he would feed the stray felines. It wasn’t just cats Allen cared for. As I heard from one of the employees at the Good Samaritan House, he loved all animals, especially squirrels. And then one day Allen was gone, presumably traveling elsewhere. Whatever hardships Allen faced, whatever had brought him to the Good Samaritan House, his relationship with animals was a source of joy in his life. Financially, Allen was the least able to help those cats, but he seemed to have his heart most open to them. What about others in need who didn’t have the means to care for the animals they loved? How could our group support them?
Jenny, one of the companion animals who inspired One Heart
Returning to Pope Francis’s observation, and plumbing the depths of its profound wisdom, I believe it also contains this vital insight: the same benevolence that leads us to treat an animal humanely will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people. We have only one heart. Love begets love, compassion produces more compassion. Opening our hearts to animals in need also means opening our hearts to other, human, forms of vulnerability. That was what Allen had taught me.
The first event One Heart held was a food drive over three successive weekends in April. Members of our group collected shelf-stable human and animal (pet) food in our parish gathering space. The event also served as an introduction for our group to the parish community. At the conclusion of the food drive, all donations went to a local food shelter and pantry.
When I arrived to drop off the donations from our parish, the food pantry no longer had any dog food, and a woman was there looking for it. Fortunately, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say providentially, we had received many donations of dog food. In the look of relief and gratitude on that woman’s face—as her love for her dog joined in sympathetic union with, both amplified and received, our parish’s love for our neighbor—I felt an affirmation of our group’s mission.
We have only one heart.
Patrick McGrath teaches English at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He enjoys crossword puzzles, playing the piano, and reading mysteries. He is especially good at following instructions given by his cat, Jenny.
Thank you to Patrick for contributing this reflection. If your parish is taking action to help animals, or if you’d like support bringing resources to your parish, we would love to hear from you! Please contact us at info@saintfrancisinstitute.org!