Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission, Experiences an Act of True Kindness in a Story of Love

 

Yep, it's Caturday, and we want to share, somewhat anonymously for privacy reasons, a bit of the recent trials and tribulations of Sula, the parish cat at Old Mission who has written six books.

Sula has both a big fan club -- you can even join it on her Face Book page HERE -- and quite some renown, thanks to both own publications and publications about here, which you can read about HERE (pick and choose the ones that might most tickle your fancy).

To briefly encapsulate the history:

1. Sula arrived as a kitten, perhaps somewhere around age 1, at the Old Mission, which really is the only action in her little town.

2. After a few years spending much time outdoors in this sunny California town, Sula developed skin cancer on her ears. They were trimmed. The cancer came back. Her ears were removed. You can read her story about that experience in her book, Surviving Cancer, Healing People: One Cat's Story. 

3. Elizabeth Mahlou related Sula's story to Guideposts Magazine, which published it as its December 2015 lead story and then included it as a lead story in its November-December 2016 new All Creatures Magazine. Stories in local newspapers followed. (This is the cover photo, by Guidepost photographer Klimek, for both magazines.)

4. Sula's home, Old Mission, encountered a big problem. It sits atop the intersection of three faults and has survived several earthquakes, though twice parts of it have tumbled and had to be rebuilt. In 2016, the state of California gave the mission an ultimate: retrofit the mission for earthquake stability or be closed. Everyone went to work on that, including Sula, who wrote her first book that June, the aforementioned cancer book, which has received glowing reviews, timing its release with the annual fiesta held for the town by the church and donating proceeds to the mission coffers for retrofit. And Sula kept writing, a Christmas book, the cover of which shows her as part of the nativity, watching over Baby Jesus, 

an Easter book, a Day of the Dead book (Dia de Muertos -- yes, indeed, the book is in Spanish since half of the parishioners speak Spanish as their first language and half of the Masses are in Spanish), a book about Saints for the teens in Catechism class who need to pick a saint's name for confirmation, 

and A Tale of a Mission Cat for visitors, (fourth graders in California are required to visit a mission, and Sula's mission is a favorite one, as you can see here; her book is a great reference for when they return home and have to write a report for school, and they all love to meet Sula in person),

and donating, with her contribution now running into thousands of dollars.

5. A year or so ago, Sula developed a new kind of cancer: injection site carcinoma. Her local vet removed a small part of her hip to cut out the cancer, and Sula was soon seen running around the mission grounds again, 

going to every Mass, including the monthly anointing of the sick, joining in the line for the anointment (see her tiny white body at the end of the line-up in this photo?), because, after all, she is sick, 

and helping out at the mission gift shop, whose staff watches over her.

6. Recently, Sula's carcinoma returned. This time, Sula's vet said that the parish priest had to make a serious decision: remove Sula's leg or let the cancer run its course, which would mean that she had perhaps six months left. The priest did not want to have Sula's leg amputated, preferring that Sula be allowed to live out a normal existence as long as was intended for her.

7. At that time, Sula's biographer, knowing that God usually uses people to help God's people, contacted a professor of veterinarian science who directed her to an Animal Cancer Center in a town an hour away from the mission, and the vet there agreed to see Sula and give a second opinion. Sula's godparents (parishioners who provide her a home when she is recovering from surgery) took her to the center, where the vet thought that she could perhaps break up the cancerous cyst with sound waves, and so she did in a couple of sessions. She would not take payment! How unusual is that!! She said she could not accept payment because Sula is a special cat. (Yes, parishioners know that, but they would have paid for their beloved cat's treatment and are grateful for the free care because they do still have to pay for retrofitting their beloved mission--and are so happy to see Sula feeling well enough again to roam her beloved mission grounds.)

8. And now, as Sula continues to recover from this round of cancer and the mission gift shop is closed during the week because of covid and the lockdown in her town, Sula has retired from full-time work of attending daily Mass, caring for parishioners by sitting their laps and comforting them, and interacting with the customers at the gift ship, Sula has retired. She now lives with her godparents, but she comes in to work on the weekends at the gift shop, which has limited hours those two days. And, with Mass being streamed and not live, the church doors are closed, but she will be returning to comfort parishioners at Mass on her weekend "work days" once covid is past, people are healthy, and the church doors open.

And that is Sula's story of one vet's kindness and many acts of love between cat and parishioners.

Want to read more about Sula? We have lots of other posts; check them out HERE.

(Photographs, except as noted, by Stacey Gentry.)