Imploring creation’s master – Cardinal calls on church to pray for rain to stave off crisis

Imploring creation’s master – Cardinal calls on church to pray for rain to stave off crisis
8/3/2007
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

MANILA, Philippines (Catholic Online) – A cardinal in a drought-ravaged region has called on Catholics to offer prayers “to the master of all creation” for rain to stave off crisis power shortages, health threats and loss of millions of acres of farm land.

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In an Aug. 1 circular sent to all parish priests, shrine directors, chaplains and school officials, Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, of the Archdiocese of Manila, directed that prayers after Communion and at the Intercession be offered at all Masses beginning with the Aug. 3 First Friday liturgies.

“It is the time for our rainy season and yet the rains have not come,” the cardinal said in the correspondence to church leaders.

“People tasked with managing our water/power resources have warned that we face a crisis in those areas. Our relief will come from nature,” he said.”

“We implore the master of all creation, God, our father, at whose command the winds and the seas obey, to send us rain,” Cardinal Rosales said.

The circular included intercessory prayers and an “oratio imperata ad petendam pluviam” (obligatory prayer to request for rain). An oratio imperata is a prayer for a special intention besides those prescribed by ritual that the pope or a bishop of a diocese may require to be said at Mass.

The cardinal’s “oratio imperata” acknowledges “all the wonderous elements of nature that sustains your living creature,” before asking God to “send us the rain that our country needs so badly at this time, to irrigate our fields, to stave off a power shortage, to provide water for our bodily health, and to refresh our parched lands … so that crisis may be averted.”

It called on God to “teach us to be wise stewards of your creation so that we may always use them responsibly and protect them from abuse and exploitation.”

“Move us to share more, to serve more and to love more,” it adds.

The intercessory prayers notes that God’s help is needed to avert “damage to crops and other livelihood and an impending power shortage,” and “to inspire us in this time of crisis to share … what we have and to take responsibility for one another and for the environment and resources you have generously provided us.”

UCA News reported that Cardinal Rosales issued his directive the day the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) reported that 80,060 hectares of land planted with crops in the northern Philippine provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union and Pangasinan lacked water.

The NDCC report also says 52 million pesos ($1,136,000 USD) worth of rice and corn in Quirino province, some 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) northeast of Manila, and 267 million pesos worth of the crops in Isabela province, north of Quirino, were damaged. Some 42,000 hectares of fishponds in Isabela reportedly "dried up."

On July 25, UCA News reported, some places in the Manila region and surrounding provinces of Bulacan, Laguna and Rizal were without electricity for up to two hours. The National Power Corporation announced in a statement that the hydroelectric plants of San Roque, Binga and Magat in northern Luzon and Angat and Pantabangan in central Luzon had low water levels.

Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila also issued an “Oratio Imperata” in 1998 at the height of the El Niño phenomenon.