How can Catholics respond constructively to the ferocious firestorms that have ravaged the City of Angels this month?

There’s no single answer to that question. But the accounts of how some of the local faithful are drawing on their faith in God, in the face of exceptional personal hardship, can provide some powerful lessons.

A number of these stories have been recounted by Angelus, a publication of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. One involves the double dose of suffering inflicted upon Rick McGeagh, a member of the pastoral advisory council of Corpus Christi Church, which burned to the ground on the night of Jan. 7. Already reeling from that news, McGeagh learned the next day that his own home had also been completely incinerated — except for an intact statue of Mary.

“The fact that she survived, when everything, even our Viking stove, burned down, I think is miraculous,” he told Angelus following a Jan. 9 Mass that Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles offered for those affected by the wildfires. “There’s no way to explain that.”

Another remarkable sign of God’s presence in the continuing conflagrations emerged on Jan. 11, when Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Bryan Nassour, a member of St. Francis de Sales Church in Sherman Oaks, salvaged Corpus Christi’s intact tabernacle. But the fire captain’s discovery, buried beneath the charred remnants of the ruined sanctuary, was not accidental: He was searching through the wreckage for something that would inspire hope for his brother, who is a member of the parish, and other Corpus Christi parishioners similarly devastated by the shocking events.

“My brother lost his home,” Nassour explained. “I have close friends who lost everything but the shirts on their backs, and they belong to that church too. So, if I could save just one thing, let it be this, so they have something to believe in.”

Those who have lost their homes to the wildfires need prayers and signs of hope. They also need food, shelter and assistance with rebuilding in the wake of their devastating material losses. Local Catholics have mobilized in force to help provide these necessities, as other Angelus stories have reported.

But perhaps their greatest consolation is to remember that our ultimate happiness and final destiny depends on God and not on impermanent material possessions, which sometimes are stripped away painfully and unexpectedly. And even more, to know that a loving Savior was standing alongside them throughout the Los Angeles wildfires, just as he does in every trial of every human life.

Altadena resident Claudia De La Rosa, a Catholic mother of four whose apartment burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire, understands this profoundly.

“What I would tell the community of Altadena is to have faith,” said De La Rosa, whose husband Raul lost his construction job due to the fire. “God has something better for us,” the wife and mother, who is six months pregnant with their fifth child, added. “It may not be the way we as humans want, but God has something better for us. The Lord is with us, and he’s faithful at all times and in all situations.”