The Smell of a Skunk and the Odor of Sanctity

[Michie]

was speaking to one of my Capuchin confreres recently who had just returned from visiting his family. He remarked that there were a number of skunks around his sister’s home. These little creatures can be quite cute. Skunks are notorious, however, for their ability to spray a liquid with a strong, unpleasant scent. God, providentially, in a manner that only He could have ingeniously conceived, gave this ability to skunks in order to protect them from predators. My confrere then related that his sister’s dog had just been a victim. Only after three baths was the dog washed clean of the horrid smell.

In doing some online research on skunks, I found a fascinating account of a Jesuit who had arrived in what is today the United States and Canada. He was in awe of all the new and various species of animals that he was now encountering, for they were not present in Europe. One such animal was the skunk.

In 1634, he wrote in The Jesuit Relations (accounts sent back to France of what the Jesuits were experiencing in the “new world”) that there was a “low animal, about the size of a little dog or cat. I mention it here, not on account of its excellence, but to make of it a symbol of sin.” He proceeds to describe what a skunk looks like and concludes by noting how foul-smelling it is:

No sewer ever smelled so bad. I would not have believed it if I had not smelled it myself. Your heart almost fails you when you approach the animal; two have been killed in our court, and several days afterward there was such a dreadful odor throughout our house that we could not endure it. I believe the sin smelled by Saint Catherine de Sienne must have had the same vile odor.

Continued below.

The Smell of a Skunk and the Odor of Sanctity - The Catholic Thing

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