Virtue in Middle-earth

I recently heard a man talking about his experience with some young people of various ages--home schoolers to be more precise--and remarking how they are very intelligent and well-educated and usually are extremely well-versed in the Christian symbolism of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. That man is right! Deo gratias. Now please allow me to remark on Peter Jackson's recent and third Hobbit movie: The Battle of the Five Armies. As in all six of his movies about Middle-earth, Peter Jackson has done a good thing in bringing Tolkien's tale to the attention of the public. However, he did--in my opinion--make a few mistakes. The most glaring of all: He portrays Faramir as a sinner, when--in Tolkien's mind and legendarium--Faramir is a saint and represents the saints, while his brother, Boromir is the sinner, that is, an every man figure who--in the words of Samwise Gamgee, "tried to take the Ring from Frodo after swearing an oath to protect him," and then repents of his crime. Boromir represents most of us: repentant sinners who are "working out our salvation" only because of the graces made available to us through the holy Church and drawn from the Treasury of Graces won for us by the Suffering King, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, whose return we eagerly await with grateful hearts. Faramir, on the other hand, is the saint or holy man who refuses to do evil and who knows that one may never to an evil act even to attain a good end. The end never justifies the means. But don't accept this on my word alone, nor on the "intellectual evidence" alone, listen with your heart to the message in Faramir's own words:

I would not take this thing [the One Ring], if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. (From: The Two Towers)

Allow me, if you will, now to cite two mistakes--or rather mistakes by omission--in Peter Jackson's third and final Hobbit movie. This movie--according to EWTN film critic Steven Greydanus--fails to include 1) the visit of Bilbo Baggins to the dying dwarf king, Thorin Oakenshield, and 2) the final scene in the book where Balin visits Bilbo and Gandalf, safely back in Bag End, and a most telling statement is make by Gandalf. Indeed, this statement is a most fitting conclusion to The Hobbit: There and Back Again, so we quote it first:

And why should they not prove true? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? Really don't suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!

And now, the visit of Bilbo to Thorin: Thorin fought valiantly in The Battle of the Five Armies and played a pivotal role in it, but he was mortally wounded in it. So, before they head back home to the Shire, Galdalf brings Bilbo into the tent were Thorin is resting as he waits for the angel of death:

"Hail! Thorin, he [Gandalf] said as he entered, "I have brought him." There indeed lay Thorin Oakenshield, wounded with many wounds, and his rent armour and notched axe were cast upon the floor. He looked up as Bilbo came beside him. "Farewell, good thief, I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers until the world is renewed. Since I leave now all gold and silver, and go where it is of little worth, I wish to part in friendship from you, and I would take back my words and deeds at the Gate."Bilbo knelt on one kneel filled with sorrow. "Farewell, King under the Mountain!" he said. "This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils--that has been more than any Baggins deserves." "No!" said Thorin. "There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!" (From: The Hobbit)

Indeed, so great in Bilbo was that noble Roman natural virtue of pietas (respect and love for the father of the family) that, as Tolkien narrates, "it was long before he [Bilbo] had the heart to make a joke again." Such respect and tenderness are born in the heart of the humble man--or hobbit!

Advent: The Return of the King

Let the trees of the wood shout for joy and the rivers clap their hands for the Lord; for He comes, He comes to rule the earth.

Family: God's Greatest Natural Gift

The Spirit distinctly says that in later times some will turn away from the faith and will heed deceitful spirits and things taught by demons through plausible liars--men with seared consciences who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by believers who know the truth. Everything God created is good; nothing is to be rejected when it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by God's word and by prayer. (I Timothy 4:1-5)

I have decided to put this passage on Humble Heroes; I was very impressed by it, and its message is for all times, especially today. Why? Against the Gnostics, the Docetists, the Manicheans, etc., it affirms the goodness of material creation. Nothing God created is bad; however, we have sin because of bad use of the will by using good things in a way that is forbidden, in a way that goes against their nature--and ours. And part of that creation, which is good, is marriage and children. Marriage and child-bearing was condemned by those heretics of times gone by (mentioned above), but St Paul and the Church through the centuries defended marriage and child-bearing. And today we have the same heresies against the goodness of God's creation only they go by different names. Widespread practice of contraception and abortion, with the approval of civil law, attacks marriage, family, and children. And shame on that movement to do what is impossible because it is against nature: redefine marriage. No wonder Pope Saint John Paul II wrote The Theology of the Body

and taught and did so much in support of the family, which Satan and the Culture of Death have sought to destroy. Dark times are upon us, but in the end Satan and his minions will--in the words of Christ our Lord and Savior--"fall from the sky like lightning." Jesus and Mary will crush the head of Satan and his minions.

Our Holy Brother Francis speaks:

It was through his archangel, Saint Gabriel, that the Father above made known to the holy and glorious Virgin Mary that the worthy, holy, and glorious Word of the Father would come from heaven and take from her womb the real flesh of our human frailty. Though He was wealthy beyond reckoning, he still willingly chose to be poor with His Blessed Mother. ... The Father willed that His blessed and glorious Son, whom He gave to us and who was born for us, should through His own blood offer Himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the Cross. This was to be done not for himself through whom all things were made, but for our sins. It was intended to leave us an example of how to follow in His footsteps.

-From a letter written to all the faithful by Saint Francis of Assisi.

More than Martyr: The Queen of Martyrs!

Have you ever thought of the Holy Virgin Mother Mary as a martyr? At least one Doctor of the Church has:"Truly, O Blessed Mother, ... we rightly call you more than martyr, since the effect of compassion in you has gone beyond the endurance of physical suffering" (Saint Bernard, Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. 3, page 1402; Sept 15: Our Lady of Sorrows). And in the Responsory of that same holy day: "Happy is she, who without dying has won the martyrs crown."

That's what it means to be King!

Of his own free will Jesus ran to meet those sufferings that were foretold in the Scriptures concerning him. He had forewarned his disciples about them several times; he had rebuked Peter for being reluctant to accept the announcement of his passion, and he had made it clear that it was by means of his suffering that the world's salvation was to be accomplished. This was why he stepped forward and presented himself to those who came in search of him, saying: I am the one you are looking for. For the same reason he made no reply when he was accused, and refused to hide when he could have done so, although in the past he had slipped away on more than one occasion when they had tried to apprehend him. (From a treatise On the Incarnation of the Lord by Theodoret of Cyr, bishop)

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." ... When Jesus said to them, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground. Again, he asked them, "Whom do you seek?" And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus answered, "I told you that I am he; so, if you seek me, let these men go." (John 18:4-8)

We know also from the Gospel according to St John that the Good Shepherd is the Gate of the Sheep. The Shepherd, as the Gate, stands in front of the sheep in the place of the Gate and guards the sheep with his very life.

Friends of the King

What an amazing friendship between Jonathan and David. (See today's readings--especially the second reading--in today's Liturgy of the Hours.) Jonathan is the prince, the heir to the throne of Saul his father, yet he would rather have God's anointed, that is, David, be king; Jonathan is happy to be second in the kingdom in deference to his friend David, who is in fact the one whom God chose to be king, and the royal ancestor of the Anointed One of God, that is, Jesus the Christ. This reminds me of Boromir promising King Elessar (that is, Aragorn): "I would have followed you my Captain, my Brother, my King!" And St John the Baptist: "Jesus must increase, and I must decrease." May each one of us have this relationship, this friendship, with Jesus the Christ: our God, our true Friend, and our Divine King. Viva Cristo Rey!