Though perhaps I should say that I hope that it’s true, rather than believe that it’s true. Insofar as Catholics, after Aquinas, tend to distinguish between the immortal soul of a human and the material soul of an animal.

If you believe that sort of thing is true for animals, which I do. Even if it’s not categorically the same, in its reality, as it is for humans.

He slipped, in other words, from the plane of existence in which we were with him, into whatever plane of existence is subsequent to this one.

Although, maybe it would’ve been better to have said he ‘passed away,’ insofar as his death did not occur with exactness, but across what appeared to be a span of moments.

I could say “passed away,” for instance, but that phrase is too vague and imprecise, to my mind.

I dislike the word ‘expired,’ by the way, but I can’t think of another word to use in its place, in this context.

I say “seems” because he was breathing when we left A.’s mommy’s house, but was no longer breathing by the time we arrived at the vet. So he must have expired at some point during the trip.

It seems that he died in the backseat of the Highlander, as we were driving him to the vet, while he was cradled in a blanket in A.’s mommy’s arms, while A. herself sat in the back also, beside her mommy.

When I first met him he would bark in a yippy, aggressive way, and dance around my feet, but after he got to know me was quieter, and almost friendly.

He was a small dog, by the way, a Miniature Pinscher I believe.

I say “unexpected,” and it was, but it also wasn’t completely surprising, in that he was an older dog, and had recently been experiencing the sort of health conditions that I guess are not uncommon in his breed.

Something unexpected happened yesterday, which was that A.’s mommy’s dog died.

Which encompasses not only Scripture and Revelation, but the authority of the Church, which itself manifests in her sacraments and tradition and magisterium.

Which may sound like a kind of arrogance, I don’t know. I would maintain that it is merely confidence in the singularity of the faith.

In other words, you can’t be privy to the fullness of truth without also being accountable for the responsibility it confers.

Though of course I remember again that admonishment from Pope Saint Pius V, which I already mentioned, that “all the evil in the world is due to lukewarm Catholics.”

It’s another example, to my mind, of the way Enlightenment thinking encourages the flimsy, humanist ethics that has contributed to the disintegration of society we are experiencing today, even if such disintegration at first occurred so slowly as to not be observable.

Which, nothing against Thomas Jefferson, he was obviously a great man in many respects, but I can’t say I can get behind that particular decision of his.

The red ink, however, put me in mind of something I once heard about Thomas Jefferson, that he compiled a copy of the Gospels in which the miracles of Jesus were removed, or cut out, so that all that remained were his ‘teachings.’ Which of course reduces Jesus from a God-man to a man. Not much different, in essence, than all the other great teachers of history, like Buddha, or Confucius, or Socrates.

In A.’s copy the words of Jesus have been printed in red ink, so that they stand out in relief against the rest of the text, which is in black ink. That is the copy that I happened to take from the shelf, though I didn’t give much thought to the decision — it was merely the copy that was closest to hand when I neared the shelf in the parlor where I knew I’d find one of them.