The Professor!

On this day in 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Professor is 129 today! All around the world, at 9pm local time, the Tolkien Society and the Professor’s many other devotees will celebrate his birthday with a toast to “the Professor”.

I will join in, though it will undoubtably be earlier in the evening, and I encourage you to do the same.

The Professor’s writing, and my discovery of them as a young boy, changed my entire world view. I didn’t know it at the time, but this new way of seeing the world is very much a sacramental world view.

It was Tolkien who started me on the road to Christianity, as it was very much Our Lady of the Assumption who gave me the final push in through the Church doors.

This is as it should be, for the Professor himself fostered a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady. (J.R.R.Tolkien)

It was Tolkien’s fiction that captivated me, but it was his own philosophy that enthralled me.

We have come from God and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God.

Indeed, only by myth-making, only by becoming a “sub-creator” and inventing stories, can Man ascribe to the state of perfection that he knew before the fall.

(J.R.R.Tolkien)

And it was his theology that ultimately percolated through my brain and led me to the narrow road upon which now I try to walk.

Aia María
quanta Eruanno
i Héru as elye ·
aistana elye imíca nísi ·
ar aistana i yáve mónalyo Yésus :
Aire María Eruo ontaril
á hyame rámen úcarindor
sí ar lúmesse ya firuvamme :
násie :

(The Ave Maria in Quenya,
translation by J.R.R. Tolkien)

As food for thought, I share with you these excerpts from a letter of Tolkien to his son, who was struggling with his Catholic faith.

I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests; but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for me would mean leaving the allegiance of Our Lord) for any such reasons …

I find it for myself difficult to believe that anyone who has ever been to Communion, even once, with at least right intention, can ever again reject Him without grave blame. (however, He alone knows each unique soul and its circumstances.) The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is communion.

Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. …

I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and rearising. But for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honour, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place.

“Feed my sheep” was His last charge to St Peter; and since His words are always first to be understood literally, I suppose them to refer primarily to the Bread of Life. …

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament … There you will find romance, glory, honour fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires. …

I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning – and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again: but alas! I indeed did not live up to it. I brought you all up [his children] ill and talked to you too little. Out of wickedness and sloth I almost ceased to practise my religion… I failed as a father.

Now I pray for you all, unceasingly, that the Healer (the Hælend as the Saviour was usually called in Old English) shall heal my defects, and that none of you shall ever cease to cry Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.

(J.R.R.Tolkien)

The Professor!