With El Niño expected in June, Catholic bishops want all faithful to recite at Mass an oratio imperata or mandatory prayer, for deliverance from calamities and disasters.
The special prayer shall also be said before the first class period in all Catholic schools. The prayers started in Masses last May 15 and will run until September 29, 2014, Feast of the Archangels.
“We cannot control the wrath of nature but we believe that God has power over all creation,” said Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
“We have been forewarned by experts and scientists that the rest of the year 2014 may be challenging months for the country bringing exceptionally strong typhoons, rains and winds. Let us turn to prayer and beg the Lord for deliverance and protection,” he said.
The prayer will also be said in Cebu, said Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma.
The last time Palma issued an oratio imperata was in November 2013, when supertyphoon Yolanda was on its way to the Visayas.
The obligatory prayer is an old Catholic tradition where the bishop leads the community in prayer for a special intention.
In past years, it was used in Cebu to seek divine protection for peaceful elections and peace in the Middle East, safety from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), bird flu virus, dengue, the influenza A (H1N1) virus as well as the success of the 2007 ASEAN Summit hosted in Cebu.