Father José Geraldo Sobreira was leading mass last year for his parishioners in the Barrio Floresta neighborhood of Brazil when he got a chance to demonstrate what it looks like to love all of God’s creatures.
A dog wandered in looking for attention.
It had on a yellow collar but it had no tag to identify its owner.
Paróquia Nossa Senhora das Dores sits in the Floresta neighborhood of the city of Belo Horizonte. Stray dogs are not an uncommon sight, but they tend not to wander into church and stand next to the priest!
That Sunday, Matheus Lemos of the church’s communication office happened to have his phone handy to record the incident – and as you might imagine it immediately went viral. It’s been viewed 8.7 million times since it was uploaded on June 2, 2019.
That’s partly because the dog decided to put on quite a show!
Fr. Sobreira was extremely patient through all the pup’s antics.
He carried on the service and put up with the comedy routine as the dog rolled around, mouthed his hands, demanded to be pet, and even took a nibble on his robes!
His good-natured reaction to the dog earned him lots of well-deserved kudos from those who viewed the video – especially during the belly rub portion!
It takes a lot of love not to shoo the dog away and even smile while it’s interrupting a ceremoney.
We definitely love dogs, but this one was content on being pretty naughty! Perhaps that’s because he was clearly used to human attention – and lots of it.
The communications advisor from the church told Bored Panda:
“It happened during the Sunday Mass at 9 a.m., a puppy got lost in the street and entered the church. The animal was on a leash, which indicates that he was a domestic animal.”
But it wasn’t all fun and games. His behavior did get to be a bit too much at one point.
“He entered the church after Mass had already begun. He went up to the altar, bit and pulled the towels from the altar, destroyed some flower arrangements, even the priest wanted him to leave.”
Luckily, Fr. Sobreira’s attention calmed him down – at least a little. He was still playful, but less deserving of an exorcism.
“While the readings were being read, and all were seated, the dog wanted to play with the priest, biting and pulling his robes,” the adviser said.
Sobreira understood that the dog just wanted to play – after all, the collar would indicate that he had just made a bold escape from his home and was looking for adventure.
But his patience was tested again when the dog managed to get ahold of one of the pieces of paper he was reading from!
Hope he had that memorized!
Later on, volunteers went out looking for his owner and a homeless man recognized the dog and knew where he lived.
His name is Herman and his owner – who has Alzheimer’s – had left the gate open. Thankfully, he was returned to her safely.
It turns out Herman picked the right church to attend mass.
Fr. Sobriera is quite a dog-lover.
The previous year he even rescued a little “Christmas miracle.”
The church’s spokesperson told Bored Panda:
“A fun fact is that after the Christmas Eve Mass, on December 24, a puppy dog was abandoned inside the church, and the priest adopted it later.”
Scroll down below to see the pious pup’s Sunday adventure.
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