I don’t suppose people feel that the floods that have devastated them are nothing to worry about. I don’t suppose they’re thinking, “Well, God promised that there would never again come ‘a flood to destroy all mortal beings,’ so we’re okay.”

Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.” So is calamity. When flood or earthquake, devastating drought or raging fire attacks where you live and drives you from your home — that’s local. It’s personal. It makes us realize once again how unsteady is the earth we stand on and how inadequate our human strength, in the face of calamity.

We feel alone. And vulnerable.

We cry to God, “Save us, save us!”—as if God had not already done that.

There’s an early gospel hymn, perhaps unfamiliar to many Catholics, that expresses a sturdy faith in the Lord who has already saved us — and will not abandon us, though we die:

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.

That’s the refrain from Edward Mote’s hymn “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less,” published in 1836, and later put to music by William B. Bradbury. (The tune MELITA, to which the Navy Hymn is frequently sung, is also used with this text.) The verses speak of storm, flood and other trials, affirming faith in spite of chaos, and trust in spite of calamity.

That’s the gospel, the good news, in which we believe. That’s the faith we proclaim.