Mastiff Blessings

Cleo with a baby Tristan.

The first time he saw the puppy that was to become his first Mastiff, “she looked at me with beautiful, big, black eyes, and I was conquered,” he says. Recalling that Egypt’s famous female pharaoh had the same effect on Julius Caesar, Fr. Beretta named the puppy Cleopatra, though she answers to the more informal Cleo. Naturally, a male Mastiff called Caesar followed.  

In 2012, when it came time to return to priestly life, Fr. Beretta knew that Cleo, his “California beach girl,” would be stifled in an urban or suburban setting that didn’t give her unfettered access to the outdoors. His pastoral duties, he realized, needed to be in a truly pastoral setting.  

Fr. Beretta had fallen in love with Montana in the 1990s, when he visited the remote Yaak Valley in the northwestern corner of the state after reading about it in a travel guide called “The Dog Lover’s Companion to the Pacific Northwest.” So Fr. Beretta contacted the Helena Diocese, making it clear that he and his dogs were a package deal. Caesar passed just before Fr. Beretta made the move to the Big Sky state, but he soon added two new Mastiffs to his pack: Tristan, a 2-year-old male, who Fr. Beretta describes as “shy, very active and patient.” And, true to her early rescue experience, 4-month-old Isolde – by now you have guessed that Fr. Beretta has a predilection for the ancients – is, in his words, “adventurous, fearless, curious and adorable.”  

Fence greetings after Mass.

 

The Mastiffs are especially popular with the parish children, who crowd the fence in front of the historic rectory after Mass every Sunday to greet them.   “People are fascinated by their size, and are somewhat cautious initially,” Fr. Beretta says. “Bishop Thomas, my boss, told me recently, ‘Father Patrick, your front yard looks like the lion enclosure at the San Diego Zoo.’” He’s not the first to have drawn the comparison: When Fr. Beretta lived in Huntington Beach, his neighbors nicknamed 200-pound Cleo the “Lioness.’’  

Fr. Beretta describes Cleo as “very dominant, gentle, affectionate.” He recalls her walking into a scripture study class one day and taking a place at the table. “She listened at length to the conversation on the prophet Isaiah and then walked out, very proud of herself.”  

Now 13½ years old – an enviable age for a dog of her breed and size – Cleo demonstrates that famed Mastiff affinity for anything smaller and weaker than herself, in particular children. When friends who are very fond of Cleo brought over their new baby, “she was absolutely captivated,” Fr. Beretta remembers. “She stood at the baby’s side and wouldn’t let the two other dogs come close to her. And there was just this loving exchange of stares” between dog and baby.  

 

If the Montana weather gets too nippy during the day, the dogs can warm up in this shelter. They spent their evenings in the rectory.    

 

Fr. Beretta’s Mastiffs are more than just canine companions. They are also a source of great comfort for someone whose job is to provide comfort himself.   “My dogs bring me a deep sense of peace,” he says. “I am chaplain at a hospital and I see people die often, sometimes children. It can haunt me with sadness. The dogs are an immense source of healing and joy for me.”  

The Mastiffs are a constant reminder to stay in the moment, undistracted and open to possibility.  

 

“What the Lion is to the Cat the Mastiff is to the Dog,” Sydenham Edwards wrote in 1800 in the Cynographia Britannica. Apparently, the bishop thinks so, too.

 

“Romuald, a wonderful medieval Italian saint, gave this instruction to his disciples: ‘Empty your minds and sit in compete stillness,’” Fr. Beretta says. “It is the posture of self-discovery, the path to enlightenment, the channel of complete serenity. My dogs do it all the time and have achieved those gifts to a much greater extent than I have.”  

Several times a week, if it isn’t snowing, Fr. Beretta goes on hikes accompanied by at least one of his Mastiffs. “We search for the Cathedrals and chapels, the synagogues and temples of nature,” he wrote in his first piece for the Huffington Post in October. “To the elk, the mountain grouse, the spider, the deer, the wild flower, the pine tree, we are pilgrims briefly passing through.”  

Fr. Beretta says that “a lot of thinking and reflection take place during those walks – that’s how I come up with my homilies,” adding that ideas for stories bubble up then, too. “The Romantic poets of England used their walks with their dogs in the lake districts to come up with their poetry. There’s something about being outside, walking, that really brings inspiration.”  

 

Tristan in the great Montana yonder. How to battle modern-day ennui? “A good place to start is to recapture the lost sense of wonder of this planet and its life,” Fr. Beretta writes in his blog.

 

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, Fr. Beretta’s parishioners regularly pose a sticky theological question to him: Do dogs go to heaven?

 

“I cannot be dogmatic about it,” he says, apologizing for the irresistible pun and noting that the subject is not specifically addressed in scripture. “However, we know of God’s love for all his creation. I, like many others, have a hard time imagining heaven without them.”  

 

Fr. Beretta’s beloved Cleo died several weeks after this story was written. “She now knows a lot more about the subject of dogs in heaven than you or me,” Fr. Beretta says. To read his blog posts and become a fan, visit www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-beretta/.   © Modern Molosser Magazine. This article may not be reposted, reprinted, rewritten, excerpted or otherwise duplicated in any medium without the express written permission of the publisher.