A TEESDALE vicar who earned national fame after using chopsticks to administer bread at holy communion is now planning to hold an online service to bless people’s pets.
The Mercury first revealed how Revd Eileen Harrop had turned to her Chinese cultural heritage to keep parishioners safe during services last month, and the news has since spread across the UK.
The Gainford vicar decided that the best way to give the bread at the Eucharist was to use extra-long serving Chopsticks. Her confidence in using them comes from her upbringing and love of Asian cooking learnt from her childhood in Singapore.
Reopening churches for public worship within Covid-19 safety protocols has challenged clergy to adopt innovative ways to deliver services.
Mrs Harrop is again rising to that challenge with an Online Blessing of Animals Service to be broadcast on Sunday, August 30.
She said: “This year, we have the opportunity of extending our service specially to bless god’s creatures great and small – wild, farmed, and home companions – across parish boundaries.
“Some people have shared delightful photographs on Facebook of regular visitors to their gardens – birds, bees, hedgehogs, and butterflies.
“In our first recorded Sunday service on YouTube, the Kirkup family, of Walker Hall, recorded their Prayers of Intercessions with their diary cows. On Pentecost, when visitors and residents of Gainford walked around to enjoy the scarecrows in glorious sunshine, so did their dogs who leapt with delight in the river and on the green. We would love to bless people’s animals.”
Residents are asked to send the vicar photos or video clips of their animals and pets so she can bless them on a recorded service which will be screened via YouTube.
“Be sure to tell me their names as well as yours or if they are visitors from the wild, tell me where you had photographed them, and if you know, also what they might be. Animals and their companions who had not previously attended church are all welcome.”
People can send photos and videos to ekgharrop@gmail.com. For details of the YouTube screening, visit “Gainford St Mary’s and Winston St Andrew’s” via Facebook.
