J.R.R. Tolkien: A Cause for Canonization (Part Three/Conclusion)

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Faith

Apart from his professional life at Oxford, Tolkien consistently professed his Catholic faith to both family and friends. As his friend and assistant Clyde S. Kilby remarked, “I do not recall a single visit I made to Tolkien’s home in which the conversation did not at some point fall easily into a discussion of religion, or rather Christianity,”[1] and according to his son Michael, his faith “pervaded all his thinking, beliefs and everything else.”[2] He was especially devoted to the Eucharist, once telling his son Michael:

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 upon 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.[3]

He also recommended frequent participation at Mass, explaining: “The only cure for sagging of 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.”[4] Tolkien even once served at Mass for his friend and fellow Inkling, Fr. Gervase Mathew, SJ.,[5] and experienced a mystical vision of the Eucharist during another Mass.[6] Similarly, Tolkien also firmly believed in the validity of the Papacy. “I myself,” he said, “am convinced of 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.”[7] Tolkien was equally devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, saying to another Jesuit friend that “upon [her] all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded.”[8] Tolkien also expressed his Catholic faith in another way through the writing of his well-known fantasy stories.

Subcreation

    The most influential expression of Tolkien’s Catholicism is the fantastic legendarium set in his invented world of Arda, particularly in Valinor and Middle-earth. From the very beginning of The Silmarillion, a pseudo-biblical mythology from the viewpoint of his ‘elves,’ or more properly called the Eldar,[9] Tolkien established his world as definitively monotheistic: “In the beginning was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar.”[10] Tolkien clearly calls Ilúvatar the “True God,”[11] and His Spirit, the “Flame Imperishable” or “Secret Fire,” he explicitly names as the Holy Spirit.[12] Then, in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s most well-known work, we see typological and sacramental imagery which he specifically reveals to be Christian in inspiration. The angelic Vala Elbereth and the elf-queen Galadriel are both Marian figures for whose intercession the heroes often pray,[13] while Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn and Sam fulfill the offices of Christ as priest, prophet, king and suffering-servant, respectively.[14]

Spiritual warfare is also a central theme to Tolkien’s stories, primarily shown by the influence of demonic entities in Middle-earth. As he explains, “In The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about 'freedom', though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour.”[15] Tolkien describes “the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth”, the first fallen angel and main antagonist of The Silmarillion, whose “satellite” is Sauron,[16] the primary villain of The Lord of the Rings and a “satanic demon,”[17] as is its secondary villain, Saruman.[18] The heroes’ struggle against the temptation of Sauron’s One Ring of Power is thus a spiritual struggle, culminating in the eucatastrophe of the Ring’s destruction by a direct act of Divine Providence in reward for Frodo’s prior act of mercy toward Gollum, the former Ring-bearer who had become twisted by his attachment to it.[19] Tolkien expresses a distinctly Catholic view of morality, with Frodo explaining that evil can “only mock, it cannot make,”[20] and Aragorn dismissing relativism with his statement that “good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them.”[21] Along the way during their journey, the Fellowship, and particularly the Ring-bearer as he moves deeper into the realm of the Enemy along his own Via Dolorosa or Way of the Cross, is nourished by lembas, an elvish bread whose name means ‘bread of life’ or ‘waybread’ in Tolkien’s elvish language, equivalent to eucharistic viaticum, a bread which primarily nourishes the spirit and which grows more effective when received while fasting.[22] As Tolkien scholar Bradley J. Birzer notes,

Indeed, the Elven lembas arguably serves as Tolkien’s most explicit symbol of Christianity in The Lord of the Rings; it is a representation, though pre-Christian, of the Eucharist. For Tolkien, nothing represented a greater gift from God than the actual Body and Blood of Christ.[23]

    Tolkien consistently shows the Providence of God in The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf, “an incarnate angel”[24] whose special task is to combat Sauron, overcomes the demonic Balrog and dies in the attempt, yet is “sent back” by God,[25] resurrected and subsequently transfigured as a typological foretaste of the resurrection of Christ.[26] Gandalf also counsels Frodo, the Ring-bearer, with words of Catholic wisdom. He advises Frodo, who initially reacted with bitterness, to act with mercy towards Gollum:  

Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need… Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.[27]

Gandalf also reminds Frodo of the preeminence of Providence, even when its design cannot be clearly known:

Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker [Sauron]. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.[28]

Tolkien famously wrote,

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.[29]

Though it is not explicit in his story, due to it being set in a pre-Christian time and to avoid erroneous religious implications, Catholicism is communicated through the narrative itself, its characters and typology, just as God communicates Himself in a primarily sacramental way in salvation history and daily life. As Tolkien explained, “After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth’, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode, and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.”[30] For this reason, Tolkien attributed his talents and ideas directly to God:

For as a matter of fact, I have consciously planned very little; and should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up (since I was eight) in a Faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know… The only just literary critic is Christ, who admires more than does any man the gifts He Himself has bestowed.[31]

Saint   

J.R.R. Tolkien’s prowess as a writer of fantasy literature is well-known. However, by a thorough study of his life and writings, particularly his private correspondence, as well as the testimony of those who knew him, it becomes clear that his worldview, which formed the basis for all his life choices and his works, is inextricably Catholic. Believers and nonbelievers alike can see the fact of Tolkien’s devout Catholic faith; this is one factor explaining the popularity and evangelical power of his writings. Many converts, including myself, have been led to Christianity and its fullness in the Catholic Church through an initial encounter with the Faith in Tolkien’s works, given as it is implicitly and without the obvious elements which upbringing or culture may have biased against. As Protestant writer Donald T. Williams notes,

[O]ne reason I think many non-believers love the book is that it gives them an escape from a secular and meaningless world into a place where meaning and purpose not only exist but are also believable. For that is a world in which their own natures are not frustrated but fulfilled.[32]

With the addition of future research on this topic, especially into any potential miracles attributed to Tolkien’s intercession and the possibility of a cult of veneration (of which there has already been at least one occasion, with a Mass and prayer for the opening of Tolkien’s Cause for Beatification held at the Oxford Oratory),[33] Tolkien’s cause for canonization may be formally opened. In conclusion, here is the text of the Beatification Prayer (for private and personal use) from the Mass for his canonization:

O Blessed Trinity, we thank You for having graced the Church with John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and for allowing the poetry of Your Creation, the mystery of the Passion of Your Son, and the symphony of the Holy Spirit, to shine through him and his sub-creative imagination. Trusting fully in Your infinite mercy and in the maternal intercession of Mary, he has given us a living image of Jesus the Wisdom of God Incarnate, and has shown us that holiness is the necessary measure of ordinary Christian life and is the way of achieving eternal communion with You. Grant us, by his intercession, and according to Your will, the graces we implore… hoping that he will soon be numbered among Your saints. Amen.

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[1] Kilby, Tolkien & The Silmarillion, 53.

[2] Joseph Pearce, Tolkien: Man and Myth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001), 194.

[3] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 43.

[4] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 250.

[5] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 99.

[6] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 89.

[7] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 250.

[8] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 142.

[9] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 131.

[10] J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed), The Silmarillion, 2^nd edition (New York: Ballantine Book, 2002), 3.

[11] Tolkien, Letters, 156, 183.

[12] Bradley J. Birzer, Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2002), 62.

[13] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 213; cf. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, 2004), 729. Kindle.

[14] Birzer, Sanctifying Myth, 69.

[15] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 183.

[16] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 156, 183.

[17] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 156.

[18] Birzer, Sanctifying Myth, xii.

[19] Birzer, Sanctifying Myth, 60.

[20] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 913.

[21] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 438.

[22] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 213.

[23] Birzer, Sanctifying Myth, 63.

[24] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 156.

[25] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 502; cf. Tolkien, Letters, Letter 156.

[26] Birzer, Sanctifying Myth, xii.

[27] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 59.

[28] Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 56.

[29] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 142.

[30] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 131.

[31] Tolkien, Letters, Letter 142, 113.

[32] Donald T. Williams, “An Encouraging Book: How Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Saved Me,” Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity 30 (5) (2017), 34.

[33] Sarah Burns, “‘Saint Tolkien’: Why This English Don Is On The Path To Sainthood,” at epicPew (6 July 2018), at www.epicpew.com.