Prayer and Providence

 

Fr. Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians

September 2020

Prayer and Providence

 

During the U.S. Civil War, fighting at the Battle of Shiloh (April 6, 1862) left more than 3,000 dead and 6,000 wounded.  Many of the 3,000 who died were initially wounded, but died of infection after being left in the mud for two rainy days before medics were able to recover them.  Some of the wounded noticed something very strange at night as they waited: their wounds glowed, casting a faint blue light into the darkness. More striking was that when the troops were eventually moved to field hospitals, those whose wounds had lit up survived at much higher rates and healed more quickly that their comrades-in-arms whose wounds had not glowed.  The mysterious light was quickly called “Angel’s Glow” by the survivors, who thought they had indeed been healed by their guardian angels, who had left a sign of the supernatural intervention: the strange light that had saved them from death by infection. 

 

In 2001, about a century and a half after the battle, young researchers analyzed the bacteria and microbiology of the soils of the battlefield at Shiloh, and discovered that nematodes (microscopic worms) heavily present in the battlefield’s muddy loam were hosts to luminescent bacteria, Photorhabdus luminescens.   The nematodes carry the bacteria in their guts.  They hunt insect larvae in the soil, and burrow into their bodies, where they regurgitate the bacteria living inside them.  The bacteria, which are bioluminescent and glow a soft blue, produce a number of chemicals that kill the insect host and eliminate competition for the parasitic feast by killing all the other microorganisms already inside it.  Once the host is consumed, the nematodes re-ingest the bacteria, ready to move on to other prey, attracted by the light emitted by the bacteria as the fed.  And though human body temperature is normally too high to provide a friendly environment to nematodes and the P. luminescens bacteria, the historical records of the battle tell of a perfect convergence of conditions:  the wounded soldiers lay in the nematode-laden mud and suffered from severe hypothermia after exposure to the rainy cold nights.   The bacteria had eliminated other pathogens from the wounds as they emitted the blue glow.   

 

The soldiers thanked the angels: the glow was mysterious, unexplained, and clearly was linked to their survival.  Perhaps they should have been blessing a humble soil worm, its gut bacteria, and the severe hypothermia they endured.  

 

Does understanding the improbable mechanism of their survival preclude their sense of gratitude, and their blessing of God and his ministers of grace, the angels?

 

We pray to God not to get what we want, but to reveal willingly and unabashedly ourselves, our hopes, our fears, and our thanks to the God who already knows us and all we desire.   Angels and nematodes are not incompatible:  perhaps the angels used the microscopic worms to accomplish God’s grace.   Our faith tells us that there is purpose and providence in what may seem to be random chance.

 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+