Easy way to create a lightsaber and it's animations?

So what I want to do is attach a lightsaber to a cat model I have. The cat is just a Character pawn with a static mesh that looks like a cat and no animation, so it’s just a cat statue sliding on the ground. What I want to do is give it some sword swinging animations and a lightsaber. What would be the easiest way to do this for someone who has no experience with Maya? Is learning something like Blender the only solution?

Thank you!