The 37th prayer listed “for special occasions” in the Catholic Sacramentary, the official Catholic worship book, is the prayer “to avert storms.” The text reads:
Father, all the elements of nature obey your command. Calm the storm that threatens us and turn our fear of your power into praise of your goodness.
When floodwaters converged on Iowa City in early June, Fr. Jeff Belger, director of the Catholic Student Center, said he started to say the prayer at daily Masses. “It was the first time in five years as a priest that I’ve had to use that prayer.”
I’m sure some people are saying it now, as Tropical Storm Fay approaches the Florida Keys. I am glad to know it, and will have it at hand, in my home out on the East End of Long Island once hurricane season gets underway.
Weather-related prayers - for rain in time of drought or protection from violent storms - are based on a concept of God as the one who controls nature. In many cultures, including our own, people expect priests and religious leaders to petition God for favorable weather, a good harvest, a safe voyage through the storm.
Some might say these prayers in times of terror and stress originate from the child within us. But a very famous scene in the Gospels - Christ rebuking the wind and calming the sea (Mark 4:37-41) - reinforces the belief God will intervene to save us, our loved ones and neighbors, our pets and property as the storm descends in fury.
If not, then to give us the strength to face what we must, and adapt with courage to the circumstances we are given, and trust that, whatever happens, we are always in God’s hands. 
The Dextera Dei, the Right Hand of God, is portrayed on the north face of Muiredach’s Cross, the largests of the stone “high crosses” at Monasterboice in Co. Louth, just north of Dublin. The Hand of God is shown resting on a round carved disk; underneath it two snakes intertwine three human heads.
The monastery was founded around 520 A.D. The cross was carved in the 10th century, and is dedicated to an abbot of Monasterboice, Muiredach mac Domhaill. His death is recorded in 923 A.D.
I was in the presence of the cross on a cold, bright spring morning. The ground was still wet with dew. I remained standing by the Right Hand of God long after the other members of my group moved away. I studied, and looked, and counted, but I couldn’t crack its mystery.
Since I returned home, I have not been able to find any discussion of the iconography of this part of the cross. Are the roots of the artwork in the ancient Irish symbols for the sun, victory and divinity? The Old Testament? The New Testament? All three? The images portrayed have their roots in both traditions: Life, Death, Kingship, Victory, Divinity. Snakes could symbolize the ancient native religion, Satan or fallen angels.
The location of the cross was in an ancient grove had its own meaning. That gently sloping knoll served as a sacred place to the local people well before the arrival of Christian missionaries and monks.
There are referrences to ”right hand of God” throughout the Bible. As the messiah, Jesus is supposed to be seated at the Right Hand of God.
But the cross of Muiredach pays as much attention to David as it does Jesus, so I think the origin for the symbols come from one of his stories or psalms.
In my first attempt as a Biblical art detective, I propose the inspiration for the carving comes from Psalm 109. It begins: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at might right hand: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool.”
Psalm 103.
25 So this is the great sea, which stretcheth wide its arms: there are creeping things without number: creatures little and great. 26 There the ships shall go. This sea dragon which thou hast formed to play therein. 
I love the sea. I love dinosaurs. I love mystery monsters, especially sea monsters. I have all three with the Leviathan. What was it?
Biblical scholars and others have numerous theories about what it was, what it could have been, and what it represented.
I think it might have been an extra large Nile crocodile; but it could also have been an imaginative literary creation based on the discovery of the bones of an ancient marine reptiles. It possbily could have been a living creature of legend, much like the Loch Ness Monster. 
Depending on the translation, it can be read as “whale” or “coiled.” If the Leviathan was more whale-like, then I would say it resembled a dunkleosteus or liopleurodon. If “coiled” then a mosasaur or sarcosuchus.
Walking along the beach at Orient, NY I came up this driftwood sculpture. I named it “Leviathan” for its open, roaring mouth and stare across the sea. 
“Therefore, neither he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”
The writer had evangelizing on his mind with this line, but I thought about my garden. I lovingly covered up the roots with soil; I water the plants thoroughly, even refreshing the leaves; I admire them from close and afar, I glory in their color and wildness.
But it is God who infuses them with life. 
Was a vision of nature responsible for the conversion of the Gentiles?
Acts 11:1-18 - the Reading for Monday, April 14.
The Apostles and the brothers who were in Judea heard the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem the circumcised believers confronted him saying, “You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them.”
Peter began and explained it to them step by step, saying, “I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when in a trance I had a vision, something resembling a large sheet coming down, lowered from the sky by its four corners, and it came to me. Looking intently into it, I observed and saw the four-legged animals of the earth, the wild beasts, the reptiles, and the birds of the sky.”
“I also heard a voice say to me, ‘Get up, Peter. Slaughter and eat.’ But I said, ‘Certainly not, sir, because nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’
“But a second time a voice from heaven answered, ‘What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.’”
The miracles of Jesus can be categorized into four types: healings, exorcisms, the ability to bring people back from the dead, and power over nature.
Miracles involving power over nature are attested to by several of the gospels, most notably Mark, Matthew and John. Some of these include the withering of a fig tree outside the gates of Jerusalem, the calming of a storm, turning water into wine, and probably the most famous, walking on water.
In a miracle described by Mark, Matthew and John, Jesus walks out onto a lake in order to greet a boat containing the disciples. According to Matthew, following Jesus’ example Peter is also able to walk on water. 
