Writing sermons is a creative process, and like all creative processes it has its highs and its lows. For priests with writer's block, the Theology Council offers help in various forms. There are hefty tomes of recorded sermons of the past, and special holochannels where preachers are vying for top spots in the popularity charts. There are also handy online and officially sanctioned sermon generators.
From time to time, the Theology Council will send out a suggested topic as well. Not on special days for which the theme is already fixed, but for regular days throughout the year. This week's suggestion is "on Faith and Fortitute".
This combination of great gifts of God help us deal with hardship. Faith gives us assurance in a positive outcome. It is more certain than hope, and does not necessarily speculate about how things will work out. Rather, Faith is the inner conviction that, despite all the hardships, things are ultimately going to be okay.
However, faith alone will not necessarily give us the strength to do what is required of us to face these hardships. For this, we need courage, endurance, strength of will, and all these constitute Fortitude.
This is a nice suggestion of a theme for a service. It does make me worry a bit (those who know me will not be surprised and say that I worry about everything).
But this theme makes me think that the Theology Council is foreseeing hardships for our people in the near future...
