Parishioners at St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village got an uninvited guest during a candlelight evening service last month, when a raccoon climbed the front steps, pushed through the door and wandered into the foyer before being steered back outside.
The animal turned up on Sept. 25 during the church's quarterly Nightfire Candlelight Prayer Service, a contemplative evening Mass held by candlelight. Video of the encounter, posted to the parish's Instagram account, shows the raccoon pausing just inside the entrance before church staff ushered it back onto Sixth Avenue, where it disappeared into the night.
Father Jonah Teller, the church's pastor, met the animal face to face in the foyer and walked it back out the door himself. He later noted the timing was hard to ignore: the visit came roughly a week before the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on Oct. 4, the patron saint of animals and ecology, whose feast day traditionally includes a blessing of pets and other creatures at churches across the country.
I don't know if his spirit is walking in behind the raccoon, but it's a great reminder of St. Francis and of God.
Father Jonah Teller, St. Joseph's Church, Greenwich Village
The clip quickly made the rounds online and drew coverage from the New York Post and UPI, with passersby on Sixth Avenue telling reporters they rarely see raccoons wander so openly in that part of Manhattan, even though the animals are common across the city's parks and rooftops.
No one was hurt, and the raccoon appears to have left the way it came, on its own four paws, rather than requiring intervention from city animal control. Church staff said the Nightfire service has continued on its regular quarterly schedule since the visit, minus the uninvited guest.
Whether or not the timing carried any larger meaning, the moment gave the historic Village parish an unusually light headline heading into a weekend that, fittingly, included blessings for the neighborhood's more conventional pets.