Tolkien~ not just hobbits, wizards and ogres

I recently found a new blog, Standing on My Head, by Fr. Dwight Longenecker. So far, I really like what I see, so much so I ordered his book “The Gargoyle Code” for Lent. It is a book written in the same spirit as “The Screwtape Letters”, by C. S. Lewis.  I am planning some Lenten reflections, so I will be sharing my thoughts as I use this in my Lenten practices this year. I can't wait!

I want to thank Fr. Longenecker for  posting this quote by J.R.R Tolkien today~

"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. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children - from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn - open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand - after which [our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)"

Now, I have never been much of a Tolkien fan. Oh, I read “The Hobbit” & the LOR Trilogy, but 'Narnia was where it was at', as far as I was concerned! I am a Lewis girl, and have been since my childhood. I must have read “The Chronicles of Narnia” a thousand times. In my teen-age years, “The Screwtape Letters” became my “bible”, and as an adult I have gained great appreciation for C. S. Lewis and his writings on Christianity and his journey. (As an aside, if you have not yet seen the movie “Shadowlands” I highly recommend it, it is a wonderful portrayal of Lewis, the man, brilliantly played by Anthony Hopkins) I have discovered that, in most cases, one is either a Tolkien fan or a Lewis fan, but usually not both.
Odd, especially considering that they were great friends and mentors to each other.

I have never seen this quote before, and only recently have actually read some of Tolkien’s writings on Christianity, so when I read this quote, it really stuck a cord with me. I know it is something that I will pray with the next few days and I invite you to do the same. These are wonderful words of wisdom for the people of the DOR, for those entrenched at both ends of the spectrum and the ones who are adrift in the middle.