A woman holds her dog to be blessed outside St. Anton Church to mark St. Anton Day, Animal patron saint, in downtown Madrid, Spain, 17 January 2022. (Photo by David Fernandez/EPA/EFE)
In this picture taken on August 1, 2022, a priest performs a ritual on a newly purchased car to seek blessings from the deities for safety outside a temple in Bangalore. (Photo by Sebastien Berger/AFP Photo)
A police officer has weapons blessed by a Hindu priest during the Vishwakarma Puja festival in the outskirts of Agartala, India, September 17, 2016. (Photo by Jayanta Dey/Reuters)
A Hindu pilgrim feeds biscuits to an ox to seek blessing before heading for an annual trip to Sagar Island for the one-day festival of “Makar Sankranti”, in Kolkata, India January 10, 2017. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)
Hindu devotees (not pictured) touch a child with their feet as part of a ritual to bless him during a religious procession held to mark the Gajan festival in Kolkata, India, April 13, 2018. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)
A swan is carried down the nave of the cathedral during the Procession of the Animals at the 31st annual Feast of Saint Francis and Blessing of the Animals at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in the Manhattan borough of New York on October 4, 2015. (Photo by Elizabeth Shafiroff/Reuters)
Hindu devotees, their cheeks pierced with metal rods, wait to participate in a religious procession during Thaipusam festival in Chennai, India, Tuesday, February 3, 2015. Thaipusam, celebrated in honor of Hindu god Lord Murugan, is an annual procession by Hindu devotees seeking blessings, fulfilling vows and offering thanks. (Photo by Arun Sankar K./AP Photo)
Family members perform the Manene traditional rite, cleaning the relatives' preserved remains, in Lembang on August 15, 2022, which is held every three years in August and is said to bless the harvest of rice fields. (Photo by Andri Saputra/AFP Photo)