“Fido is wagging his tail in heaven to-night”. According to Evelyn Waugh, this was the greeting sent out from Forest Lawn to the owners on the anniversaries of their pets buried in the cemetrey. No one, of course, asked if the owners would also deserve a place in heaven if they had killed their dogs by overfeeding or whether the latter would have the joy of interrupting the heavenly choirs by their barking. But the false assumption behind this attitude was perhaps less the hope of reunion with animal friends than the idea of a heaven where we shall all congregate cosily with our pets and former neighbours. If some of us do not relish the prospect of an eternal menagerie, can we nevertheless in all charity welcome the company of human beings who never hurt us but often threaten to bore us to death?

Even from traditional theology we get the impression that we shall not be troubled with bores, but equally that our joy in the beatific vision will be solitary and even then frustrated by the delay in the restoration of the body or by a reunion with the soul to which it will be no more than a glorified appendage. We look for the restoration of the whole personality, redeemed in Christ and therefore in Christ’s company and in the company of those we have loved on earth. The lonely person in particular asks if the affection of his or her pet, expressed in an outstretched paw, in a purring response, is not somehow transfigured also and not forever extinguished.