Prayers for monastery threatened by California fire

Travelling back from St Mary Moorfields last night, one of the company had a copy of the free paper that is handed out to commuters. On the front was a picture of the fires in California. I offered up a prayer, knowing that almost certainly some of the people I know through the blogosphere would be affected. I find that this is one way in which blogs make news more personal than reading "shock horror" stories in the chip wrappers.

Fr Z reports that the Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside is not far from where the fires are raging. One of the community is the great blogger Fr Stephanos, of Me Monk, Me Meander.

The monastery, about two miles from the sea, has provided accommodation for about a dozen people fleeing from further inland. Fr Stephanos comments

Our danger is that brush-filled canyons constitute the western and eastern borders of our property. If a fire starts down inside one of them, it would race uphill to the monastery.

Fr Z has posted the text of a very appropriate prayer from the Roman Missal asking for rain:

Oremus. Deus, in quo vivimus, movemur et sumus: pluviam nobis tribue congruentem; ut, praesentibus subsidiis sufficienter adiuti, sempiterna fiducialius appetamus. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

As you would, of course expect, his translation tells you what the prayer really says:

Let us pray. O God, in whom we live, move, and have our being, grant us seasonable rain, so that our temporal needs being sufficiently supplied, we may seek with greater confidence after things eternal. Through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son, who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever. Amen.

Do remember the community in your prayers and all those affected by the fires.