…Until you return to the ground from which you were taken: For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return. – Genesis 3:19

Notre Dame Cathedral was built of earth—of stone and wood, of glass made from sand, of metals that were mined. For better or worse, she will be rebuilt. Perhaps she will stand eight or nine more centuries before fire, flood, or neglect claims her again. But in the end, she will meet the fate of her makers. Her sooty towers stand today as a testament to tenacity, to the skill and labor of her builders and the skill and labor of the Paris fire brigade. Today, she stands as an earthly symbol of Holy Mother Church against whom the fires of Hell have not prevailed. But her scorched skeleton also stands as a memento mori to us all. You, O Man, are dust, and all your works but ashes. Notre Dame is dirt, and to dirt she shall return.

By the mercy of God, no human lives were lost in the blaze that consumed Notre Dame on Monday, though all of us who saw it, even via satellite, knew that we were witnessing a death. Much has been saved, but whatever the future holds for Notre Dame, she has lost the illusion of immortality. Anything that has stood nearly nine hundred years, through ages of careless neglect, through the French Revolution and the Nazi occupation of France, was bound to seem immortal. Notre Dame is greater than kings, greater than wars or dictators. She stood above them, reflecting the beauty of the One whom she was built to glorify. Victor Hugo called the cathedral “a sort of human Creation, mighty and fertile as the Divine Creation, from which it seems to have borrowed the twofold character of variety and eternity.”* Today we are forced to remember all too poignantly that her divinity is borrowed. All things that are borrowed must one day be surrendered.

We humans often speak of our work that lives beyond us, of art as a kind of immortality. Paintings and cathedrals can burn, but other works can be duplicated ad infinitum. The original manuscript of Beowulf could be destroyed, but the text would still remain; likewise the score for the Vivaldi Gloria or the Bach Mass in B Minor. We take the perpetuity of such works for granted. They will only die when they have been utterly forgotten. But, unimaginable as it is, that day will come. Anyone who seeks to live forever through his art is chasing after phantoms, trying to hold a ray of sunlight in his hand.

The original architects of Notre Dame sought no such earthly glory—or if they did, they sought it in vain. No one knows their names. We know nothing of their motives, their inspirations, the artistic sacrifices they made to satisfy the constraints of pragmatism or the whims of Bishop de Sully, their client. We know nothing of their faith. Were they ardent believers or closet atheists? Did they work for love or money? In the end, it doesn’t matter. It was not they who labored, but God who labored through them to lead millions of souls to Christ. This is the only glory a Christian can ever find through his creations: To do the will of the One who sent him. Our talents are all borrowed; they must all be returned.

A true memento mori must not only remind us of our earthly death, but of the heavenly life that is to come. Notre Dame is made of this earth but not for it—like you and me. The most miraculous images to emerge from Monday’s disaster are not those of the rose windows still intact (praise be to God!), but those of the faithful praying around the flames. The church blazes, but the Church is not consumed. This—the Body of Christ, the people of God—is the Church against whom the fires of Hell shall never prevail. This is the communion of saints into which we pray to enter, a communion not made of priceless statues but of men and women who comfort and console each other by the grace of God. And this, the flesh-and-blood Church ablaze with Christ’s love, is the Church that I pray will be rebuilt and renewed in the years to come, as we watch the spire of Notre Dame climb toward the heavens once again.

 

* I used this same quote several months ago in a very different essay. It seems a lot of sad themes lead me back to Notre Dame. Notre Dame des Douleurs, priez pour nous.

Many doctors of the Church write that the Virgin Mary died, not of a failing body, but of an excess of love. “Retaining in her memory,” writes St. Francis de Sales, “all the lovable mysteries of the life and death of her Son, and receiving always the most ardent inspirations which her Son, the Sun of Justice, poured out on men in the noon-day ardor of His charity… she was at length consumed by the sacred fire of this charity, as a holocaust of sweetness.”

While yesterday’s fire was still building and seemingly engulfing Notre-Dame de Paris, it was easy to believe that the worst was coming to pass: that the structure as a whole would go the way of the collapsing spire, and that all of the glorious artwork and architecture that has remained as the greatest jewel in France’s tarnished crown would be reduced to rubble and ash. Even worse was the worry that the Sacrament would be consumed and many irreplaceable relics of the Passion lost forever, and this only four days before the annual memorial of Good Friday. With the recent desecration and burning of so many Catholic churches in France, it was easy to speculate about the fire’s cause; with the recent moral state of the Church, it was impossible not to see it as a symbol of things in play and of things to come.

The worst, however, was not to be. Thanks to the life-threatening efforts of many, the Crown of Thorns was saved along with relics of the Cross and of St. Louis IX of France. Confirmation also came that much of the artwork which would have been most easily threatened had recently been removed for restoration. The wooden roof burned and collapsed into the building, but many of the ancient stained glass windows have survived. There were a few injuries, but no deaths.

No doubt we will hear more about the heroism of the police, firefighters, and other first responders in the coming days. Special attention is already going to Fr. Fournier, the Chaplain of the Paris Firefighters who rushed inside to save the Eucharist and the Crown. The full story of what happened and why will take time to unfold.

Already we see lovers of culture and history stepping forward to promise funds for restoration, prompting hope but also worry. The fact that the cathedral still stands prevents the building of something new from scratch. In an age as allergic to all kinds of custom and tradition as ours, one wonders what architectural abomination might have been set in its place. Thanks be to historical preservation societies for saving the Church from herself. Even as things are, the restoration plan is uncertain. One can easily imagine a medieval Rose Window replaced by glass stained with art copied from a book of cheap clip art, as one often sees in today’s churches. The debate about religious art is more important now than ever—does God deserve our best efforts, or will we be content to offer him our worst and call it “humility”?

Daniel Mitsui made some relevant observations in a presentation from two years back,

The treasures of Christian art and architecture are today endangered: by indifference and neglect, by misguided renovation, by war and revolution. They may be preserved for a time for the sake of national identity or lofty but indifferentist notions of cultural worth. But the Lindisfarne Gospels and Chartres Cathedral are things of this world, and will not last forever: Rust and moth consume, thieves break in and steal. More tragic than to lose such treasures is to lose the ability to make them; more tragic yet is to lose the desire to make them. That desire can only be provided by religious faith. It is religious faith that animates the tradition, that makes it live rather than linger.

We live in an age when we have nearly lost the ability to make great art and almost as nearly lost the desire so to do. Can any modern restoration of Our Lady’s church be better than the failed restoration of the Ecce Homo by Cecilia Giménez? Would we do better to merely maintain the structural integrity of the building and move most the art to a museum or private collection? On the other hand, will the Church ever relearn how to build something as vast, complex, cosmological, and simple as the Notre-Dame de Paris without its living example? We are weakened by skepticism and perfidy; do we deserve to look upon its like again?

That all lies in the future. For the moment we wait. The coming days will tell us what can be done and what cannot. The days after that will be filled with argument, bitterness, and perhaps hope. Whatever the future holds for the French cathedral, it will not be identical with her past. We must remember that nothing is too good for the Mother of God. No work or effort is too strenuous for her glory. She is the Burning Bush, the tabernacle of God which was not consumed by the flames of his presence when he resided within her womb.

Beauty is unity radiated through diversity, and few religious works of art have demonstrated this better than Notre-Dame de Paris. May we make ourselves again worthy to built such a temple worthy of God and of his Mother.

The Open Culture site has a small feature on Franz Kafka’s drawings. “In those diaries, Kafka doodled incessantly – stark, graphic drawings infused with the same angst as his writing. In fact, many of these drawings have ended up gracing the covers of Kafka’s books.”

The Risking Enchantment podcast takes on the subject of Monsters and Morality in Romanticism.

Have you ever been perusing a Medieval manuscript and thought, I wish someone would turn these fantastic beasts into piñatas? “He uses the crepe paper creations as the basis for his sculptures. In the past, Benavidez recreated the strange beasts found in Bosch’s triptych but has more recently turned to the Luttrell Psalter, a famous medieval manuscript.”

Have scholars discovered Leonardo da Vinci’s only surviving sculpture? “It’s always been part of Leonardo’s legend that he made sculptures, including a giant horse, but not a single extant three-dimensional work by him had been identified. The Virgin with the Laughing Child is the miraculous exception, according to the curators of the exhibition Verrocchio.”

Joshua Hren writes about the Christ-haunted George Saunders. “Still, though Saunders may have formally left the Church, its forms didn’t leave him. Raised in parochial Catholic schools in the 1960s, to this day he traces his need for ‘mystery, and metaphor, and beauty’ to ‘the power of the Catholic Mass’ he encountered in childhood.”

Franz Klein considers the farming life, springtime, and Hopkins. “Everything about the spring– and about Lent, which occurs in the spring– evokes the impending freshness, to steal Hopkins’ word, that is buried deep in the dark, loamy dirt, hidden somewhere amidst last year’s dead growth. There is dearest freshness in Mary’s womb– and in the deep-down things of the earth, too.”

The poet W.S. Merwin died on March 15. It’s a date he celebrated ninety-one times in his life. Each year as it passed, the anniversary made a mark on him. He felt his powers fading but the final moment lay hidden until the very end when he breathed his last. It was then, and only then, that he was able to truly celebrate. Finally, he knew the moment.

Merwin has written, “Send me out into another life / lord because this one is growing faint / I do not think it goes all the way.” Well, dear friend, you are now on your way. For Merwin, the meaning of existence was revealed through loss. His life, as it circled round that fateful day of his death, always felt strange to him, as if he was traveling through a fairyland. Creation is powerful and the hearts of men conceal wonders, so much so that the universe seems to have slid off-kilter. The most important moment of revelation is not birth, when everything is given, but death, where everything is taken away.

Here one of his better-known poems.

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveler

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

In the very last poem of his last published book. Merwin fittingly leaves us a meditation on departure.

The Present

As they were leaving the garden

one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

I am to give you this

as you are leaving the garden

I do not know what it is

or what it is for

what you will do with it

you will not be able to keep it

but you will not be able

to keep anything

yet they both reached at once

for the present

and when their hands met

they laughed

Peggy Rosenthal writes in the Image Journal, “as Adam and Eve enter time, they enter inevitable loss.” The present is a double-edged sword. It’s the gift that takes away, of inhabiting each moment in plenitude but also the inability to hold onto it as it slides past. The horizon of past, present, and future is shifting sand and we are always in the middle term. We step out of the Garden and into the present, but the birth that brought us to this place has also delineated our boundaries. The special, intuitive knowledge of man to see the inner heart of nature, the flow of time through the universe, brings with it the sorrow and fear of death. In fact, it is death which is the culmination of laughter. It is loss that reconciles us. It is the final act of the tragedy that fully opens our eyes to the I AM to whom we bow our heads each moment we hear a wren sing, grieve the buds of a magnolia tree broken and cast down by a spring storm, or contemplate a poem by the irreplaceable W.S. Merwin.

A recent article on The Guardian tells us that novelist Francis Spufford has penned an unauthorized sequel to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series that may never see the light of publication, which is sparking a small flurry of debate about copyright. “Frankly,” one contributor opines, “copyright law [is] a bit of a mess. Much of the legislation dates from when making copies involved onerous labour with a printing press. Computers have utterly changed that.” Another day, another appeal to the Internet as a total game-changer?

The rights of artists and intellectuals to their work has been debated for as long as there has been art and intellect, although the widespread use of the printing press forced the creation of legislation. The late 1400s saw rights granted to certain publishers to print books, but it was not until the 1700s that laws worked more in the favor of writers with the Statute of Anne in England, a law that was soon imitated by other nations. This also created the realm of the “public domain” since copyrights had a set expiration. Intellectual property law today is a vast realm that encompasses copyright, patents, trademarks, and a variety of infringement possibilities.

The invention of the Internet makes the sharing of copyrighted materials in ways that do not materially benefit copyright holders very easy, especially in less regulated countries like Russia. Book publishers have found it nearly impossible to prevent PDF file sharing, and American film studios have sunk a great deal of money into legal and technical departments that limit their movies from spreading like viruses through the World Wide Web. All of which leads to that early clarion cry of hacker dens, that “Information wants to be free.”

Of course this is true, in a sense. Writers want their work to be read. Photographers want their pictures to be seen. Speakers want their talks to be heard. But these makers also want the capability to profit from their work. Even Socrates, who shamed the avaricious Sophists by dispensing his home-spun wisdom for free to anyone who would accept it, suggested to the jurors at his capital trial that he should be rewarded for his service with free meals at the Pyrtaneum in perpetuity. Does not the Scripture say, “The labourer is worthy of his reward”?

Somewhere there is a common-sense mean between the extremes of lawless intellectual property Marxism and the undying mills of corporate copyright extensions. Should not an artist be permitted to support his family with bequeathments of intellectual property, at least for one generation? The reductio ad absurdum arguments against passing intellectual property to one’s heirs lose their force when the laws keep their time limits, and when corporate interests do not bulldoze the law.

The aforementioned commentator also writes, “But should we have to obtain permission from, and pay fees to, Shakespeare’s or Euripides’ heirs before staging performances of Hamlet or The Bacchae?” It certainly is unfortunate that Disney’s corporate interests have warped copyright law into something many now wish to trash entirely, and the way many corporations suckered artists out of their own intellectual rights with “work for hire” clauses has allowed these companies to profit massively with toy sales and film adaptations while the creators die in relative poverty. Corporations increasingly hold copyrights and trademarks on intellectual works of all types—think not only of screenplays but of mechanical patents and search algorithms—and the luckiest workers are the ones with a 401(k).

Which leads to the deeper question: What moral rights do people hold over the intellectual and artistic works they create? Long ago such works were considered to be more or less common property, part of the tradition of a certain people. Artisans, teachers, and advisers were to be paid for their labor, but the fruit and imitation of their labor were not easy to hold in check. What they achieved most was honor and glory, not monetization, but even honor can be sullied with cheap imitations, clumsy adaptations, and false claims of authorship.

Think of the fake sequel to Don Quixote that Cervantes had to acknowledge and dishonor before he could get on with his own volume. Think of the many poor film or television adaptations of novels that have hurt book sales. Think of the endless debates over the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, which either sully or glorify his memory. Think of how a Narnia sequel could ruin the world and “feel” of the original; Neil Gaiman once wrote a short unofficial sequel which attempted to do just that. A philosopher who isn’t Ayn Rand would rather be cleared of the charge of writing bad philosophy than make a just percentage of a book’s proceeds, although all things considered he would prefer both.

I offer no particular solution, here. I am not suggesting we idolize the “poor, starving artist” as a symbol of moral purity and cultural magnanimity. I am not recommending we dismantle all corporations which thrive on gobbling up an endless stream of intellectual properties… but it is rather sickening to see superhero franchises basically print their own money while the original creators and their heirs are offered pittances to disappear from public view. We need a moral theology of creator rights and responsibilities, and I don’t think many Catholic thinkers have bothered to put much effort into considering these things in depth.

(See also Karen Ullo’s thoughts on copyright and exploiting the public domain.)

Guest post by Lucas W. Holt

Behind the Mind of Middle Earth: How The Lord of the Rings Presents an Imaginative Defense of the Catholic Faith (Conclusion)

An Imaginative Case for the Holy Eucharist and the Anointing of the Sick

The role of authority and the reflections of Mary in Galadriel are two specifically Catholic elements in the series, but we also get a subtle taste of at least two of the sacraments, The Sacrament of the Eucharist and The Anointing of the Sick. It is subtle, but one can see in certain images, and through language Tolkien employs, that there is a Catholic feel to the story. The first of these, the Eucharist, can be seen in the miruvor and the lembas, which bear similarities to the wine and bread of Holy Communion, the former being a liquor and the latter being a kind of bread. Both miruvor and lembas nourish and strengthen the traveling companions on their arduous journey. Furthermore, one needs only to have a small amount in order to be aided. Consider the following passages:

‘Give them this,’ said Gandalf, searching in his pack and drawing out a leathern flask. ‘Just a mouthful each – for all of us. It is very precious. It is miruvor, the cordial of Imladris. Elrond gave it to me at our parting. Pass it round!’ As soon as Frodo had swallowed a little of the warm and fragrant liquor he felt a new strength of heart, and the heavy drowsiness left his limbs. The others also revived and found fresh hope and vigour.[1]

‘I thought it was only a kind of cram, such as the Dale-men make for journeys in the wild,’ said the Dwarf. ‘So it is,’ they answered. ‘But we call it lembas or waybread, and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.’[2]

Furthermore, lembas “fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind.”[3] Just as the lembas and miruvor strengthen and nourish the Company as they travel on their journey, so too in the Catholic’s life the Holy Eucharist is what nourishes and strengthens him/her on their earthly pilgrimage.

Not only do we see Eucharistic imagery in miruvor and lembas, but also we can see some Eucharistic language in the story. For example, after Merry and Pippin met Treebeard and were traveling with him, they come to a resting place to spend the night. The place they settled was Wellinghall, an ent-house, inside of which we see that “A great stone table stood there, but no chairs.”[4] Shortly after the hobbits go inside with the slow-speaking Tree, we read that, “Treebeard lifted two great vessels and stood them on the table. They seemed to be filled with water; but he held his hands over them, and immediately they began to glow, one with a golden and the other with a rich green light.”[5]This scene echoes what a Catholic encounters during the Mass. The language ‘a table but with no chairs’ is a similar description of an altar, or at least in reading that line one can visualize an object that would look similar to an altar. What follows is perhaps more interesting, though: Treebeard placing his hands over what ‘seemed to be filled with water’ and then the liquid transforming. This is evocative of the way the priest during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass places his hands over the Eucharistic bread and wine during the epiclesis in which the priest calls down the Holy Spirit to transform the Eucharistic bread and wine.

The Eucharistic language and imagery in the above passage is subtle, and one who is not familiar with Catholic teaching might not recognize these similarities. However, this serves to illustrate the somewhat hidden catholicity of The Lord of the Rings. What we see is not necessarily overt scenes where Christ or his Church are symbolized, but instead imaginative interactions and language that permeate the entire work so that when the reader steps into Middle Earth it has a Catholic feel to it, even though the reader might not be conscious that they are in that kind of a world.

The second sacrament the reader encounters in LOTR is The Anointing of the Sick. The similarities between what we see in LOTR and this sacrament, however, is more explicit. The chapter called “The Houses of Healing” in The Return of the King exemplifies the nature of this sacrament. The fact that it is Aragorn who brings healing to Faramir, Eowyn, and Merry reflects the teaching that it must be a bishop or priest—one in authority—who administers the sacrament. Also, that it must be used in severe instances. Of course, anyone can take care of another; and, indeed, other people in the house are caring for the three characters mentioned above. But it is Aragorn who uses athelas (which bears similarities to holy oil) and runs his hands over their heads and calls them by name to bring them back to health. “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known.’”[6] This echoes the ministry of Jesus, the Wounded Healer and King of kings, who, during his earthly life cured the diseases of many, drove out demons, raised people from the dead, and by his Passion defeated death and opened up a fountain that cleanses people from sin.

A Meaningful World

These Catholic elements in the story––authority, typological characteristics of the BVM, the Holy Eucharist, Anointing of the Sick––, while important in themselves, nevertheless achieve their apologetic value most significantly in their cumulative effect.[7] All of these elements gathered up and mixed together point to an ordered, meaningful, sacramental universe. Nature has meaning (the trees fight in battle; when it is light/morning hope seems to spring; the air brings messages), food has meaning (lembas, miruvor), relationships have meaning, and the choices that the characters make are meaningful. All of Middle Earth is full of meaning and purpose. One does not read LOTR and think, ‘Ah, well, it does not really matter if the Ring is destroyed or not. After all, it is just one battle of many. If the Enemy prevails, there will be another confrontation in the future’. No. The fate of Middle Earth depends on what happens to the Ring, whether it is destroyed or not. This is true in our own world, too. The world we inhabit is filled with meaning: all of creation, and indeed the choices we make in our lives, matter and mean something. So when the reader enters into Middle Earth they can taste and see what it is like to have a Catholic worldview; they can try on a pair of spectacles and experience a sacramental vision of the world. Furthermore, there is this: just as the reader cannot simply shrug at what happens to the Ring, so too one cannot shrug at the Resurrection: the fate of the universe depends on whether or not Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. If this sounds incredible, it is because it is.

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 290.

[2] Ibid., 369.

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, 936.

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, 470.

[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, 470.

[6] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, 860.

[7] There are other elements that make LOTR Catholic as well: the theme of Pity, the care for the environment, the reflections of Christ in Frodo (Suffering Servant), Aragorn (King), and Gandalf (Resurrected Christ), the monastic nature of Tom Bombadil, the similarities between the duration of the Quest and the dates of events with the Church’s liturgical calendar. Addressing all of this, however, would require an entire book!

Lucas W. Holt is a missionary with Spiritus Ministries in Menasha, Wisconsin. He holds a B.S. from the University of Arizona, as well as a PGDip from the University of Oxford. He is also the creator of Pelican Poetry, which is a literary project dedicated to restoring a sense of wonder at the world.

Guest post by Lucas W. Holt

Behind the Mind of Middle Earth: How The Lord of the Rings Presents an Imaginative Defense of the Catholic Faith (Part 2)

Another specifically Catholic element of The Lord of the Rings is the typological characteristics of certain women, especially the Lady Galadriel, to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Caldecott writes, “There is another way in which Mary is present in LOTR, and that is through her reflections in Galadriel and Elbereth…. Tolkein himself calls her ‘unstained’ in Letter 353… He admitted that Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary lay behind the character as portrayed in the novel (L 320).”[1] One of the places where one can especially see Marian aspects in Galadriel is when the Company first arrives at Caras Galadhon. When they meet both her and Celeborn, the members of the Company feel like they are being tested when they make eye contact with the Lady. “At length the Lady Galadriel released them from her eyes, and she smiled. ‘Do not let you hearts be troubled,’ she said. ‘Tonight you shall sleep in peace.’ Then they sighed and felt suddenly weary, as those who have been questioned long and deeply, though no words had been spoken openly.”[2],[3] After this intense encounter Boromir becomes suspicious of the Lady’s motives but Aragorn says, “There is in her and in this land no evil, unless a man bring it hither himself.”[4] Furthermore, we see that “On the land of Lorien there was no stain.”[5] This goes with the ‘unstained’ comment referred to by Caldecott in Letter 353. Finally, Galadriel possesses one of the Three Rings of the Elves, which were made for “understanding, making, healing, to preserve all things unstained.”[6] This imagery of purity with which the reader is presented is similar to the Blessed Mother, who is ‘full of grace’, without the stain of original sin.

The bearing of gifts by Galadriel also reflects characteristics of the Blessed Mother. Two of the gifts seem to especially resemble the role of Mary. The phial of Galadriel—a powerful beacon of light in dark places—that she gives to Frodo is symbolic of the fact that Mary bore the Light of the world.

It is no accident that the light of the Phial comes from “Earendil’s star”, for Earendil is Tolkien’s version of Venus, which is both the Evening Star and the Morning Star.  The Morning Star is a Biblical name for Christ (Rev. 22:16, 2 Peter 1:19) and thus we can see that Frodo’s Phial is, in a sense (without unduly allegorising the story), a Christ-symbol.[7]

Not only does Galadriel bear the phial, but she also bears lembas, the Elvish waybread that gives strength and nourishment to the Company as they travel. “Often in their hearts they thanked the Lady of Lorien for the gift of lembas, for they could eat of it and find new strength even as they ran.”[8] Again, it was the Blessed Virgin Mary who bore the Bread of Life into the world. It seems fitting, therefore, that Galadriel is the giver of these gifts. What is also interesting is that this passage seems to be a subtle nod to the practice of praying to the saints, since ‘in their hearts they thanked the Lady of Lorien’.

These reflections of the Blessed Mother illustrate the both/and philosophy espoused by Catholics and would help a Protestant reader to see that in revering Galadriel it does not diminish the characters’ obedience to their Creator but actually enriches it; that we need not necessarily adopt an either/or philosophy when considering God but that we should have intimate relationships with all of his people. We see in the story that Galadriel, far from being a hindrance to the quest to destroy the Ring, or tempting the nine companions to worship her, actually was a major aid and comforter to the nine companions. So it is in this life: the Queen of Heaven, through her intercession and loving kindness, aids and comforts us during our exile in this valley of tears and can be a conduit of grace.

[1] Stratford Caldecott, The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision Behind the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, second edition, (Chestnut Ridge, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2012), Kindle, 77.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 357.

[3] This scene also seems to echo Luke 2:34–35 when Simeon prophesies and says to Mary, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 358.

[5] Ibid., 351.

[6] Ibid., 268.

[7] Michael Ward, “The Two Towers – Thoughts from Dr Ward”, discussion thread in the class Literature and Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, December 4, 2017.

[8] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, 427.

Lucas W. Holt is a missionary with Spiritus Ministries in Menasha, Wisconsin. He holds a B.S. from the University of Arizona, as well as a PGDip from the University of Oxford. He is also the creator of Pelican Poetry, which is a literary project dedicated to restoring a sense of wonder at the world.

Guest post by Lucas W. Holt

Behind the Mind of Middle Earth: How The Lord of the Rings Presents an Imaginative Defense of the Catholic Faith (Part 1)

‘The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision’ (Tolkien in a letter of 2nd December 1953).

If one were to refer to J.R.R. Tolkien as a Christian apologist, they might be met with a look of skepticism. After all, Tolkien never really seemed to be outspoken about his faith. Aside from his works of fiction, much of his public writings and talks seem to deal more with his academic work as a philologist. He even once remarked that he was embarrassed that his contemporary, C.S. Lewis, dedicated The Screwtape Letters to him, for Tolkien thought that one in Lewis’s position ought not to be writing about things of that nature. However, while Tolkien might not have been a ‘Christian apologist’ in the traditional sense, he nevertheless has helped many people better understand the Faith through his popular work The Lord of the Rings. In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien has created a sacramental and Catholic universe that is a masterpiece for imaginative apologetics. Middle Earth is packed full of meaning and purpose. From nature, to food, to places, to events, to the characters themselves, everything has significance. Not only is this so, but there are also specifically Catholic elements in LOTR that point to the truth of the Catholic faith. In The Lord of the Rings the reader can taste and see what it is like to be Catholic by experiencing the relational dynamics of authority, glimpsing the Blessed Virgin Mary, and gaining a better understanding of the Holy Eucharist and the Anointing of the Sick. These four specifically Catholic elements work together in an imaginative way to point to the truth of Jesus Christ and his Church. In the following series we will step into Middle Earth and consider each of these elements in turn. We will begin by looking at the topic of authority.

An Imaginative Case for Authority

One of the specifically Catholic elements of The Lord of the Rings is authority. There is a hierarchical nature to the relationships between the various characters that bears similarities to the ecclesial nature of the Catholic Church. One of the scenes that illustrate this best is the Council of Elrond, which takes place in The Fellowship of the Ring. It is truly a catholic council, in the sense that it represents the universality of Middle Earth – elves, dwarves, hobbits, men, and a wizard are present. This also signifies that matters of great importance—deciding on what to do with the Ring—are not decided by one individual as if it were a dictatorship, but rather is decided by a group of people. However, within the group at the Council there does seem to be an understanding among the members of who the leader is: Gandalf. Elrond facilitates the dialogue at the Council, but nevertheless he himself says, “But these things it is the part of Gandalf to make clear; and I call upon him last, for it is the place of honour, and in all this matter he has been the chief.’”[1] The outworking of the Council reflects, in a way, the episcopal college. The college represents the variety and universality of the People of God,[2] matters of great importance are discussed at councils, each of the bishops has an authoritative voice, but it is the Roman Pontiff (even though he is the Bishop of Rome and is a ‘brother bishop’) who is the leader and is looked to in order to help makes things clear.

Indeed, Gandalf appears to have a kind of pontifical role throughout The Lord of the Rings. Not only does he hold the seat of honour at the Council of Elrond, but one can see his leadership in other instances as well. Consider the dismay of the Company once Gandalf falls at the bridge of Khazad-Dum. Aragorn yells, “Come! I will lead you now! We must obey his last command. Follow me!”[3] Later on in The Return of the King at the houses of healing, Aragorn says, “But it is my counsel that Gandalf should rule us all in the days that follow and in our dealing with the Enemy.”[4] Gandalf is perceived as the leader among his friends and allies. What is perhaps most interesting, though, is what Gandalf says himself. As he is speaking with Lord Denethor in Minas Tirith Gandalf says, “But I will say this: the rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care.”[5] Does not this sound like the role of the pope? The Vicar of Christ does not rule any realm even though he holds the keys to the kingdom. It is his job, however, to care for the happenings of the Church – and indeed the world (though not by himself!).

This hierarchical nature and the role of authority in the story present a counter perspective to the story told by modern culture. Whereas contemporary society exalts autonomy and individualism, the picture we see in LOTR is one of camaraderie and teamwork—a Company. There is nothing wrong with individualism per se. In fact, we see the individual characteristics of the Company very clearly. Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf, Boromir, Sam, Merry, and Pippin each have distinct characteristics and personalities. But they use their unique gifts not in isolation to be a hero but in cooperation with others. Furthermore, each relies on the others not only during battles but also in answering tough questions—whether strategizing routes, planning alliances, figuring out riddles, remembering tales, and so on. It is when individualism is proposed as the only solution to answering difficult questions (who am I? why are we here? What is my purpose in life? Where are we going?) that it becomes problematic.

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings, 50^th Anniversary One-Volume Edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 250.

[2] See CCC 885.

[3] J.RR. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 331.

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, 862.

[5] Ibid., 758.

It’s hard to explain how obsessed I am with Pierre Reverdy. In finding him, I feel I’ve found a true brother in Christ, a really moody, depressed brother in Christ who doesn’t want to be bothered. He’s the kind of friend who always has an encouraging word to say, like, “My heart is 
almost extinguished among the already cold ashes of the moon,” and, “Exile and spleen and boredom eat at our heart and spirit.” It makes me happy to read him.

Reverdy wrote in French and had very specific theories of language, including the way he deployed imagery. He sought a refined, simple language that would break free from the shackles of physical limitation and convey a sense of artistic hope and freedom. He’s a man trapped in a room who responds by closing his eyes and dreaming. His work is very difficult, if not impossible, to translate adequately. His friend Kenneth Rexroth, who translated several of his poems, says, “The poetry of Reverdy makes unusual demands upon the translator.”

The challenge is compounded by the fact that many of his translators don’t seem to understand his Catholic faith and so miss the subtleties. Here’s his poem Chair Vive and several attempts at a translation. I recommend reading the French out loud to hear how amazing it is. After that, it becomes clear how imperfectly the English conveys the beauty of the original.

Chair vive

Lève-toi carcasse et marche

Rien de neuf sous le soleil jaune

Le der des der des louis d’or

La lumière qui se détache

sous les pellicules du temps

La serrure du cœur qui éclate

Un fil de soie

Un fil de plomb

Un fil de sang

Après ces vagues de silence

Ces signes d’amour au crin noir

Le ciel plus lisse que ton œil

Le cou tordu d’orgueil

Ma vie dans la coulisse

D’où je vois onduler les moissons de la mort

Toutes ces mains avides qui pétrissent des boules de fumée

Plus lourdes que les piliers de l’univers

Têtes vides

Cœurs nus

Mains parfumées

Tentacules des singes qui visent les nuées

Dans les rides de ces grimaces

Une ligne droite se tend

Un nerf se tord

La mer repue

L’amour

L’amer sourire de la mort

Here’s Frank O’Hara’s translation. O’Hara was a fellow poet and admirer of Reverdy.

Live Flesh

Carcass my dear get up and walk

There’s nothing new under the yellow sun

Absolutely the last of the golden Louis

Light which is so detached

Under time’s little scales

Lock on the heart that’s breaking

A silk thread

A plumb-line

A thread of blood

After waves of silence

Those kinky black signs of love

Heaven smoother than your dear life

Neck twisted with pride

My backstage life

From there I see death’s harvests swaying

All the greedy hands that make smokeballs

Heavier than pillars of the universe

Empty heads

Naked hearts

Perfumed hands

Tentacles of the monkeys who claw the clouds

In the furrows of those grimaces

A straight line tightens

A nerve twitches

The full sea

Love

Bitter smile of death

Here’s the Lydia Davis translation. It’s more literal.

Live Flesh

Stand up carcass and walk

Nothing new under the yellow sun

The last of the last of the louis d’or

The light that separates

under the skins of time

The lock in the heart that shatters

A thread of silk

A thread of lead

A thread of blood

After these waves of silence

These tokens of love in black horsehair

The sky smoother than your eye

The neck twisted with pride

My life in the corridor

From which I see the undulating harvests of death

All those greedy hands kneading loaves of smoke

Heavier than the pillars of the universe

Heads empty

Hearts bare

Hands scented

Tentacles of the monkeys who aim at the clouds

Among the wrinkles of these grimaces

A straight line tightens

A nerve twists

The sea sated

Love

The bitter smile of death

And here’s one by Dappled Things Editor Natalie Morrill, whose novel The Ghost Keeper is currently in a literary grudge-match against Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan (ahem – go vote!) This translation, in my opinion, is the best at honoring Reverdy’s spiritual intent. For instance, notice the strongly Biblical first line, an allusion which may have been lost on you in the other translations because they don’t quite grasp it.

Live Flesh

Arise old carcass and walk

No new thing under the yellow sun

The very last of the old gold coins

The light that comes apart

beneath films of time

The heart’s lock that pops

A thread of silk

A thread of lead

A thread of blood

After these waves of silence

These markings of love in black horsehair

The sky smoother than your eye

The neck twisted with pride

My life in the wings

From which I see rippling the harvests of death

All these greedy hands kneading lumps of smoke

Heavier than the pillars of the universe

Empty heads

Naked hearts

Perfumed hands

Monkey tentacles trained on stormclouds

In the wrinkles of these grimaces

A straight line tightens

A nerve twists

The sea fed

Love

The bitter smile of death