Have Animals a Sixth Sense?
Apparently the recent mass survival of animals and the mass-death of men in the Asian tsunami has led to a renewed investigation of the supposed sixth sense of the beasts which warned them of the impending calamity. Interestingly, my pastor noted just this morning noted that if one lives one’s life in accordance with God’s will and is receptive to His word, then one is more likely to be warned of events before they happen (taking the example of St. Joseph, who was warned by an angel to leave Judea, told when he could return and warned to turn away from his path for safety’s sake). It seems to me that animals—which have no free will and thus can neither sin nor do good, but merely fulfil their appointed roles—may indeed, since they are less fallen than men (for they never sinned, but were merely twisted thereby), be able to know of impending mass danger.
Or perhaps it’s simply that the shore-creatures hear the cries of the sea-creatures caught up in the wave and flee, and the inland-creatures hear the cries of the fleeing shore-creatures, and all head for the hills. But it doesn’t seem out of the question to me for the less-fallen to be more in tune with God—which is also to say, more in tune with everything in God’s creation (which perhaps explains the many clairvoyant saints as well).
