~ by Father Ron Camarda

This week a reading from the Office of Readings by Tertullian, a priest, touched me. He was born around the year 140 to 150 AD but did not become a Christian until about 192 AD in Northern Africa in Carthage. He became a valuable historian.

What fascinates me is how he uses animals to help him write a treatise on prayer. In some ways, it sounds a little like Susi’s book. Here are a few excerpts:

Prayer is the offering in spirit that has done away with the sacrifices of old. What good do I receive from the multiplicity of your sacrifices? asks God. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats. Who has asked for these from your hands?

We pray in spirit, and so offer in spirit the sacrifice of prayer. Prayer is an offering that belongs to God and is acceptable to him: it is the offering he has asked for, the offering he planned as his own.

I love how Father Tertullian speaks of animals that were sacrificed in the Old Testament, but how Jesus changed all that. Actually, the prophets were alluding to it for hundreds of years. Let’s continue. Listen to how he speaks of creation like a symphony.

Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good.

Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.

All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look out to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer.

What more need be said on the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honor and power forever and ever. Amen.

I set out and walked the beach last evening about an hour before sunset. I walked the couple of miles from my beach access to my favorite space in Hanna State Park. Purposely I didn’t take my camera. My pen captured the moments.

There were sounds like seagulls, people enjoying the Friday dusk, the gentle crash of the ocean, and the swirling of sand, shells and sea.

The wind was from the west on this east-facing beach, so the waves were restrained. When I walked barefoot at the water’s edge, I noticed that the water was softer than usual because of the heavy rains the day before. On my walk I noticed the jellyfish that lay dead in the waves lapping the shore. The sky was blue with purple and pink tinges growing.

I was all alone even though people shared this boardwalk to the beach.

This setting reminded me of the time I was swimming with the Navy Seals in 1996 and ended up lost among thousands of jellyfish miles from the shore. It was a prayerful moment that triggered another prayer moment.

I will share these prayer adventures next week about how I strived to survive two situations where I was in danger of drowning or being eaten.

For now, let us listen to the Prophet Hosea and strive in our prayer with all our heart:

Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord;

as certain as the dawn is his coming,

and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!

He will come to us like the rain,

like spring rain that waters the earth.”

This prayer walk happened on the anniversary of my brother Gerry’s death two years ago on April 1. I didn’t realize this until my Dad called me tonight to let me know my last surviving aunt, Margaret, died that day also. She was 98 years old.

May she rest in God’s loving arms in Heaven.

Love, joy, peace, and prayer,

Father Ron Moses +

www.tearinthedesert.com

Father Ron Camarda is a retired Naval Chaplain and author of “Tear in the Desert,” a powerful book containing his memoirs of life and death at the Battle for Fallujah. Father Ron appears on EWTN and recently won the Silver Medal from the Military Writers Society of America.