Elves, Men, and Ambrose on All Soul's Day

Without the assistance of grace, immortality is more of a burden than a blessing (St. Ambrose).

In his legendarium, which includes all his fictional writings of Middle-earth and his Letters, J.R.R. Tolkien's thinking on life and death, immortality and mortality, is present. It is one of the major themes--perhaps the major theme--of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have no doubt that Tolkien, being a devout cradle Catholic, knew well the Dies Irae and the thought of St. Ambrose and St. Paul on death and immortality or, shall we say, death vs. immortality. In his lengendarium, Tolkien brings out that the Elves are immortal and thus "bear a great weariness"(LOTR). ("Immortality" is here understood as serial longevity on earth rather than what it really is: eternal life in Heaven.) But death is a great gift given to the Followers, that is, to Men. This is because death frees Man from his awful burden. Again, from "the Undying Lands" (actually Heaven), Saint Ambrose speaks:

Death was not part of nature, it became part of nature. God did not create death from the beginning, he prescribed it as a remedy. Human life was condemned because of sin to unremitting labor and unbearable sorrow and so began to experience the burden of wretchedness. There had to be a limit to its evils; death had to restore what life had forfeited. Without the assistance of grace, immortality is more of a burden than a blessing.

Tolkien sees death as a great blessing to Men, but only because the great Saint Ambrose saw it first!

Ecclesiastical Postscript: Saint Ambrose is the bishop who baptized Saint Augustine, who is perhaps the greatest Father of the Church. One can get an excellent sampling of the writings of Saint Ambrose in the Second Reading from the Office of Readings in today's Liturgy of the Hours.

The Pope of the Family; the Pope of Mercy

O God, who are rich in mercy and who willed that Saint John Paul II should preside as Pope over your universal Church, grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching, we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ, the sole Redeemer of mankind. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Inspiring Fact: Many consider John Paul II the Pope of the Family because of his pro-life teachings, especially his Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, which is also known as Familiaris Consortio.

Humility

Humility is the foundational virtue. It is the sine qua non (without which nothing) of the virtuous life. We absolutely need God and His grace or will will certainly fall.

Guard your Church, we pray, O Lord, in your unceasing mercy, and, since without You mortal humanity is sure to fall, may we be kept by Your constant helps from all harm and directed to all that brings salvation. (From the Collect of Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent)

The Patience of the King

The perfection of brotherly love lies in the love of one's enemies. We can find no greater inspiration for this than grateful remembrance of the wonderful patience of Christ. He who is more fair than all the sons of men offered his fair face to be spat upon by sinful men; he allowed those eyes that ruled the universe to be blindfolded by wicked men; he bared his back to the scourges; he submitted that head which strikes terror in principalities and powers to the sharpness of the thorns; he gave himself up to be mocked and reviled and at the end endured the cross, the nails, the lance, the gall, the vinegar, remaining always gentle, meek and full of peace. -by Saint Aelred, abbot

Cicero, Leo the Great, and Divine Providence

What a great and marvelous thing beyond all imagining it is to be a follower of the Lord Jesus, a member of His Mystical Body in the state of grace. Saint Leo the Great knew this well, as he states in a very Ciceronian manner:

If we are indeed the temple of God and if the Spirit of God lives in us, then what every believer has within himself is greater than what he admires in the skies.

Now is it certainly a work of Divine Providence--and no mere coincidence--that the renowned orator and philosopher Cicero, who lived before Christ was born in Bethlehem, using right reason, made this observation:

When we look up at the sky and contemplate the heavenly bodies, can anything be more plain and certain than that there is some higher being of surpassing intelligence governing all these things? (De Natura Deorum, II, 2)

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.