What makes a Humble Hero?

The reading from today's Liturgy of the Hours Evening Prayer could be considered as St Paul's version of what makes a Humble Hero, that is, a saint. It's certainly true that God is in charge and we can do nothing good without God's help, that is, without his grace.

God has chosen the weak of this world to shame the strong. He has chosen the world's lowborn and despised, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who were something; so that no flesh may glory in His sight. (I Corinthians 1:27-28)

J.R.R. Tolkien must have read and meditated upon St Paul. For, in Tolkien's legendarium, it is the weak, small, virtually unknown little Hobbits who save Middle-earth from slavery to the evil Sauron. And, in "the real world," it is the Divine Child of Bethlehem and his holy Virgin Mother who save us lowly ones from evil and Hell.