Whenever strong tropical cyclones like Super Typhoon Pepito (Man-yi) strike the Philippines, one of the most searched keywords on Google is always “oratio imperata.”
Oratio imperata is a Latin term that means “obligatory prayer.” Upon the orders of a bishop, it is recited by Catholics in times of conflict, famine, and calamities. From January 2020 to February 2023, for instance, Catholics had an oratio imperata against COVID-19. In July this year, Catholic bishops issued an oratio imperata for peace in the West Philippine Sea.
The most popular oratio imperata, however, is the one used in times of frightening storms.
It’s the kind of prayer that calms our hearts, binds us together, and reminds us of things that truly matter.
This oratio imperata was born in one of the most disaster-prone provinces in the Philippines.
It was written and published by the Diocese of Legazpi, covering the province of Albay, under the watch of then-diocesan administrator Bishop Lucilo Quiambao in November 2006, according to Legazpi priest Father Joseph Salando in Rappler’s faith chat room.
Salando, rector and parish priest of the Diocesan Shrine and Parish of Our Lady of Salvation in Tiwi, Albay, said the prayer was composed after Super Typhoon Reming (Durian) made landfall in central Philippines on November 30, 2006. Triggering floods worsened by mud coming from Mayon Volcano, Reming killed at least 1,399 people.
Read — and examine — the full text of this oratio imperata below:
Almighty Father, we raise our hearts to You in gratitude for the wonders of creation of which we are part, for Your providence in sustaining us in our needs, and for Your wisdom that guides the course of the universe.
We acknowledge our sins against You and the rest of creation. We have not been good stewards of nature. We have confused Your command to subdue the earth. The environment is made to suffer our wrongdoing and now, we reap the harvest of our abuse and indifference.
Global warming is upon us. Typhoons, floods, volcanic eruptions, and natural calamities occur in increasing number and intensity. We turn to You, our loving Father, and beg forgiveness for our sins.
We ask that we, our loved ones, and our hard-earned possessions be spared from the threat of calamities, natural and man-made. We beseech You to inspire us all to grow into responsible stewards of Your creation, and generous neighbors to those in need.
Amen.
This oratio imperata is 162 words long.
But only 43 words — or around a fourth of this oratio imperata — is directly about calamities at hand.
Most of it tackles the root cause of the climate crisis: global warming.
“If you noticed, the oratio imperata called for ecological conversion long before Laudato Si’ was published,” Salando said in Rappler’s faith chat room, referring to Pope Francis’ landmark 2015 encyclical on the climate crisis.
Scientists have, in fact, attributed the stronger tropical storms to “a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures,” according to a Reuters report in July.
Filipino climate justice activist Mitzi Jonelle Tan, in Carmela Fonbuena’s recent report for The Guardian, said that climate change is undeniable. “If you still do not think that climate change exists, look to your neighbors; look to your countries. It’s happening across the world,” she said.
“Typhoons with short intervals will continue to happen because the climate crisis is here,” Tan said.
It’s one of the topics raised at the United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22 this year — around the same time that Pepito is ravaging the Philippines. (Follow Rappler’s COP29 coverage here.)
“These storms are a matter of life and death in my country, and it is truly frightening to see so many out-of-season storms,” said Yeb Saño, executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, in a statement on COP29.
“One after the other, these storms are threatening our home. How we respond to them at COP29 is not optional. Finance and action are needed now!” he added.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) noted how four storms, including Pepito, “churned simultaneously in the Western Pacific Ocean in November 2024.”
Citing the Japan Metereological Agency, NASA Earth said on Friday, November 15, that it was “the first time since records began in 1951 that so many storms coexisted in that area in November.”
The Philippines has been battered by six storms, including the four storms of November, in only four weeks:
- Severe Tropical Storm Kristine (Trami) from October 21 to 25
- Super Typhoon Leon (Kong-rey) from October 26 to November 1
- Typhoon Marce (Yinxing) from November 4 to 8
- Typhoon Nika (Toraji) from November 9 to 12
- Super Typhoon Ofel (Usagi), which entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) on November 12
- Super Typhoon Pepito (Man-yi), which entered PAR on November 14 and continues to pose danger to the country as of posting time.
It will only get worse if we, human beings, fail to change our ways.
Praying is not enough because the oratio imperata demands not only lip service during times of disaster but climate justice in our day-to-day lives.
Do we, as the oratio imperata states, “acknowledge our sins against You and the rest of creation”? Do we admit that “we have not been good stewards of nature” and that “we have confused Your command to subdue the earth”? Are we aware that “the environment is made to suffer our wrongdoing and now, we reap the harvest of our abuse and indifference”?
“We, our loved ones, and our hard-earned possessions” will not “be spared from the threat of calamities, natural and man-made,” as the oratio imperata cries to the heavens, if we do not take concrete action.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, November 16, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president Bishop Pablo Virgilio David relayed an appeal from the Philippines’ Laudato Si’ Movement to “demonstrate our collective commitment to ecological justice and the protection of Earth, our common home.”
“Yes, let us pray together,” David wrote. “But let us also take action together against the climate crisis caused by the overuse of fossil fuel!”
The oratio imperata is not a magical incantation against violent storms but a challenge to correct our sins against nature.
The goal of prayer, after all, is not to change the mind of an unchanging God. It is meant to change us. – Rappler.com
