In the US and around the world today, we are all staring down the barrel of a potential World War III and other possible cataclysms. The purpose of the Crisis Scenarios team is to help the members of CORAC prepare for and survive (and even thrive in) such situations. One fact that we wish to emphasize is that all such preparation should begin with prayer. This is true whether the danger comes to us from manmade situations such as war, or from natural disasters such as earthquakes and storms.

With regard to storms, there is a popular prayer that is attributed to St. Anthony of Padua and that has long been used to ask for God’s protection in the midst of a storm. This is a prayer with which many members of CORAC are familiar, and through which some have experienced divine protection. Below are the stories of two such CORAC members. The Crisis Scenarios team would like to encourage everyone to print out the prayer (found in the link at the end of this article), and to have recourse to it whenever a storm threatens.

Kris’ Storm Story
Many times have I prayed the storm prayer from the Pieta booklet with great success. Sometimes the storm would spilt and go around us. Sometimes the forecast quarter-sized hail would only be pea-sized. Other times the storm would dissipate before it got to us. The story I’d like to share is what happened the night I did NOT pray the storm prayer.

Our home was on a lake in South Dakota. We had gone to visit our daughter and her family in Minnesota. While there, I received a phone call from a friend in South Dakota asking if we had damage at our home from the storm. “What storm?” I asked.

When we got home a few days later, we found severe damage. I bemoaned the fact that we hadn’t been home when the storm hit. I was confident that had I been home, we would not have had the damage. The damaged roof, siding, decking, and service doors all needed to be replaced. Thankfully, insurance covered it all.

Shortly after that, we determined we needed to move to Minnesota to help family. The house was in prime condition and ready for sale, and it sold at a good price. Had I been home to pray the storm prayer, the damage might not have happened, we wouldn’t have replaced the roof and such, and we might not have gotten the better price. I would not recommend skipping the  storm prayer in order to get a new roof, but my little story shows that God is good and faithful even when the storm does hit.

Mick’s Storm Story
In 2004, the storm prayer from the Pieta prayer booklet saved my family’s home from a direct hit by a tornado. I was home with our three small children, and my husband had gone into town on an errand. We had no idea that the weather was supposed to get bad or that it was even supposed to rain that day. But all of the sudden, the wind kicked up, the sky darkened ominously, and it started to rain… gently at first, but hard soon after. I grabbed my prayer booklet, opened it to the page with the storm prayer, and sat my kids down on the couch. I told them to pray that prayer and to then pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. As they started praying, I ran out the door to the pasture to grab our Great Pyrenees puppy (he was too young and too new to the farm to know where to go during a storm). I found the puppy, scooped him up, and ran back toward the house. Just as I reached the house, a massive gust of wind hit me and knocked me into the side of the house. Once safely inside with the dog, I finished the Chaplet with me kids and we waited for the driving winds and pounding rain to subside.

The next day, our next-door neighbor came by and said, “Boy, were we lucky not to get hit by the tornado.” Shocked, I asked what he was talking about. He was amazed that I didn’t know, but he told me what he had witnessed the day before. He and his crew were working on the exterior of a house about three-quarters of a mile to the east of his house and ours. Between his worksite and our houses was an open field; and since we lived in a very rural area, he had an unobstructed view of what took place. When the wind kicked up, one of his crew said, “Hey, Mike, there’s a tornado headed for your house!” He looked, and sure enough he saw a tornado, on the ground, maybe half a mile north of his house and headed dead south toward his house (and also toward our house, with was a quarter mile south of his). But about a quarter mile north of Mike’s house, the tornado lifted off the ground into the sky and divided into two separate funnel clouds. Remaining in the air, one funnel cloud passed Mike’s and my family’s houses to the east, and the other passed the houses to the west. When the two funnel clouds were about a quarter mile south of my family’s house, the two funnel clouds rejoined, descended, touched down, and continued south, ultimately ripping the roof off of a huge metal machine-shed half a mile south of us.

When our neighbor told us what he had witnessed, we were both astonished and grateful that God had spared us.. And after that, my family has often prayed the storm prayer when tornadoes have threatened.

One more thing. God left us a little bit of physical evidence of the miracle that he worked: Mike had bought one of those big trampolines for his kids. The tornado had picked it up, carried it a quarter-mile south, and dumped it in the middle of our very small vineyard. It was damaged beyond repair; but for as long as it was there, it was a reminder to us of God’s having protected us through the prayers of little children.

Here is a link to the storm prayer mentioned in Kris’ and Mick’s stories >