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.

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!

The Cornerstone of Civilization

In his book, Bradley J. Birzer quotes Pope Saint John Paul II--I dare call him John Paul the Great--on the inalienable dignity of the human person:

For the Christian humanist, the Incarnation proves the intrinsic worth of each human person, despite the fallenness that each human person has inherited because of Adam's sin. Thus, persons are never to be used as means to a "higher" end. Rather, each life possesses a unique dignity. As Pope John Paul II has explained, "the concept of the person as the unique and unrepeatable center of freedom and responsibility, whose inalienable dignity must be recognized ..., has proven to be the cornerstone of any genuinely human civilization. [Birzer,JRR Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2009)134]

Saint Pope John Paul II is eminently qualified to make this statement. For he faced the two giant tyrannical ideologues of the 20th century, both of which put their particular ideologies before the intrinsic value and unique dignity of each and every human person: National Socialism and Communism, and he defeated them.

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.

The Great Itinerant Pope

With all the popular hype about good Pope Francis, it would be easy to become distracted from and forgetful of the holiness, zeal, and apostolic courage of Blessed Pope John Paul II, who will one day be known around the world as "John Paul the Great". In fact, the 2014 ORDO hails Blessed John Paul II for his "exceptional apostolic zeal". Here, in full, is the precis:

Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland. As archbishop of Poland, he took part in the Second Vatican Council. On October 16, 1978, he was elected Pope and took the name John Paul II. His exceptional apostolic zeal, particularly for families, young people, and the sick, led him to make numerous pastoral visits throughout the world. He left as a heritage to the Church a rich Magisterium and the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the revised Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church and Eastern Churches, and the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. Pope John Paul II departed peacefully in the Lord on 2 April 2005. Pope Benedict XVI beatified him on 1 May 2011. (Emphasis mine.)

In the United States of America, the optional memorial of Blessed John Paul II is on October 22. Let us never forget this great Pope and the teachings he promulgated. For John Paul did not promulgate his own thought; the teachings he promulgated (for instance, the Catechism of the Catholic Church) are the teachings of the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus the Christ, the Son of God made man for our salvation.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever !

Saint Christopher Magellanes

I was very glad to learn about the Cristero martyrs Fr Miguel Augustin Pro and Jose Sanchez del Rio, and today--thanks to the Sacred Liturgy of the Church--I was delighted to discover even more Cristero martyrs: St. Christopher Magellanes and Companions. Each martyr imitates Jesus to the fullest extent by giving his life for Christ and praying for his persecutors.

Almighty and eternal God, who made the Priest Saint Christopher Magallanes and his companions faithful to Christ the King even to the point of martyrdom, grant us, through their intercession, that, persevering in confession of the true faith, we may always hold fast to the commandments of your love. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King and the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe!

Habemus Papam

Hi everybody ! I made a mistake. Actually, it is spelled, "Habemus papam." The Latin word that means "papa" or "Pope" is a first declension noun. In the singular, the endings are -a (nom.), -ae (gen. & dative.), -am (accusative), -a (ablative). As Cardinal of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis' statements were very much in accord with the natural moral law and against "gay marriage" so called. As Sophocles--through Antigone--said of the natural law: These live for all time !

Habemus Papem

Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio, S.J., is chosen the 265th successor of St. Peter. He is the Holy Father for all the Church and for the whole world--not for any particular nationality or political agenda. We can also say he is for all nationalities with Jesus as the one and only Lord and Savior. He is the Vicar of Christ. Ad maior Dei gloriam.

The Humility of Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI did not renounce the office of Peter because he couldn't take it anymore. He renounced the chair because he judged, in conscience, that he could not give the Church the leadership it needed and deserved, given his own diminished strength. That's an act of ... humility, not a concession to exhaustion. -George Wiegel

Editor's note: Benedict XVI realized he could no longer give the Church the leadership it needed and deserved. He did provide great leadership during the relatively short span of his pontificate. We see this leadership especially in his implementation of Liturgicam Authenticam resulting in a beautiful and profound translation of the prayers of the Mass for the English-speaking world, in the wisdom of Summorum Pontificum, and in his making it easier for Anglicans to covert to Catholicism and bring their beautiful "High-Church" liturgy with them.

Credo in Spiritum Sanctum

Hooray for this! The Holy Spirit will decide.

Madrid, Spain, Feb 14, 2013 / 02:02 pm (EWTN News/CNA) - The secretary general of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference defended Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to resign and said that the Holy Spirit will choose a new shepherd to govern God’s people.

Yes, and one more thing (perhaps a bit premature, but I will say it anyway): Santo subito !