A line of minor prophets.

Tolkien is part of a line of English writers who have given us an understanding of the great history; the History of Salvation, God's mighty works on our behalf.

Bede's History of the English is beyond compare; the whole history of this country is presented from the perspective of the Redemption. Indeed, before Bede there was hardly any history written down at all, since it is Christ Jesus who throws light on human affairs.

Shakespear, although a Catholic, gave us only glimpses into a deeper reality, a reality that had to be hidden because the ruling clique of that age despised it.

Christopher Dawson, perhaps more so than any other English writer in the contemporary age, wrote about human history in the light of Christian Revelation, giving us a fuller appreciation of our past and also of the times in which we live.

Tolkien, whose fantasy literature can do no more than parallel the Mystery of Christ, has kept alight those genuine images and values, because they express the Life of Grace. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings at at time when England was (perhaps sub-consciously) choosing anew the secular project. However, his work stands before us all and, whether you acknowledge its Christian references or not, that deepest of all relationships - Nature and Grace - is nonetheless expressed. A sign to us, whether we will or no, of a very great Love.

Too good to miss.

Robert Cardinal Sarah
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship
and the Discipline of the Sacraments

Text for Synod on the Family, October 2015

Your Holiness, Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, participants of the Synod,
I propose these three thoughts:

1) More transparency and respect among us

I feel a strong need to invoke the Spirit of Truth and Love, the source of parresia in speaking and humility in listening, who alone is capable of creating true harmony in plurality.

I say frankly that in the previous Synod, on various issues one sensed the temptation to yield to the mentality of the secularized world and individualistic West. Recognizing the so-called “realities of life” as a locus theologicus means giving up hope in the transforming power of faith and the Gospel. The Gospel that once transformed cultures is now in danger of being transformed by them. Furthermore, some of the procedures used did not seem aimed at enriching discussion and communion as much as they did to promote a way of seeing typical of certain fringe groups of the wealthiest churches. This is contrary to a poor Church, a joyously evangelical and prophetic sign of contradiction to worldliness. Nor does one understand why some statements that are not shared by the qualified majority of the last Synod still ended up in the Relatio and then in the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum laboriswhen other pressing and very current issues (such as gender ideology) are instead ignored.

The first hope is therefore that, in our work, there by more freedom, transparency and objectivity. For this, it would be beneficial to publish the summaries of the interventions, to facilitate discussion and avoid any prejudice or discrimination in accepting the pronouncements of the synod Fathers.

2) Discernment of history and of spirits

A second hope: that the Synod honor its historic missionand not limit itself to speaking only about certain pastoral issues (such as the possible communion for divorced and remarried) but help the Holy Father to enunciate clearly certain truths and useful guidance on a global level. For there are new challenges with respect to the synod celebrated in 1980. A theological discernment enables us to see in our time two unexpected threats (almost like two “apocalyptic beasts”) located on opposite poles: on the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism. To use a slogan, we find ourselves between “gender ideology and ISIS”. Islamic massacres and libertarian demands regularly contend for the front page of the newspapers. (Let us remember what happened last June 26!). From these two radicalizations arise the two major threats to the family: its subjectivist disintegration in the secularized West through quick and easy divorce, abortion, homosexual unions, euthanasia etc. (cf. Gender theory, the ‘Femen’, the LGBT lobby, IPPF …). On the other hand, the pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy, female subservience, sexual slavery, child marriage etc. (cf. Al Qaeda, Isis, Boko Haram ...)

Several clues enable us to intuit the same demonic origin of these two movements. Unlike the Spirit of Truth that promotes communion in the distinction (perichoresis), these encourage confusion (homo-gamy) or subordination (poly-gamy). Furthermore, they demand a universal and totalitarian rule, are violently intolerant, destroyers of families, society and the Church, and are openly Christianophobic.

“We are not contending against creatures of flesh and blood ….” We need to be inclusive and welcoming to all that is human; but what comes from the Enemy cannot and must not be assimilated. You can not join Christ and Belial! What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the 20th century, Western homosexual and abortion Ideologies and Islamic Fanaticism are today.

3) Proclaim and serve the beauty of Monogamy and the Family

Faced with these two deadly and unprecedented challenges (“homo-gamy” and “poly-gamy”) the Church must promote a true “epiphany of the Family.” To this both the Pope (as spokesman of the Church) may contribute, and individual Bishops and Pastors of the Christian flock: that is, “the Church of God, which he has obtained with his own blood” (Acts: 20:28).

We must proclaim the truth without fear, i.e. the Plan of God, which is monogamy in conjugal love open to life. Bearing in mind the historical situation just recalled, it is urgent that the Church, at its summit, definitively declare the will of the Creator for marriage. How many people of good will and common sense would join in this luminous act of courage carried out by the Church!

Together with a strong and clear Word of the Supreme Magisterium, Pastors have the mission of helping our contemporaries to discover the beauty of the Christian family. To do this, it must first promote all that represents a true Christian Initiation of adults, for the marriage crisis is essentially a crisis of God, but also a crisis of faith, and this is an infantile Christian initiation. Then we must discern those realities that the Holy Spirit is already raising up to reveal the Truth of the Family as an intimate communion in diversity (man and woman) that is generous in the gift of life. We bishops have the urgent duty to recognize andpromote the charisms, movements, and ecclesial realities in which the Family is truly revealed, this prodigy of harmony, love of life and hope in Eternity, this cradle of faith and school charity. And there are so many realities offered by Providence, together with the Second Vatican Council, in which this miracle is offered.

The great story.

This is my favourite inscription. This gardening book was a gift from Tolkien to his wife in 1964. By that time The Lord of the Rings was being widely read, and The Silmarillion was yet to be put together under one cover.

I have just come back from my first visit to some of the sites of the First World War. We visited sites around Ypres and Albert. We know that Tolkien was involved in the Battle of the Somme and was certainly stationed near Albert. The week that we spent visiting these sites was one of the best trips that I have ever made; I can't believe that I have left it till now to visit these sites, and I am very grateful to the party who I travelled with for their participation in that week. A hundred years on and the sacrifice that was made on those battlefields will never be forgotten or erased - the evidence of the battles is all over that part of France and Belgium, and the memorials and graveyards are very beautiful and worthy.  

The perspective of those who took part in the First World War is now well known and celebrated, in poems, letters and biographies, and above all, in the graveyards of Flanders. Tolkien's perspective is quite different. What flowed out of his experience of the Battle of the Somme took the most extraordinary literary form. What he wrote was not simply another story or account, but a story about the triumph of goodness. The Lord of the Rings is indeed fantasy, but is embedded with Christian metaphor.

The First World War, by which the secularism of that age imploded in the most horrific way, was taken by Tolkien as the place in which to write about grace and virtue. In today's subjective age when everyone has his or her own story, many of which have to be published, Tolkien's story of The Lord of the Rings appears as anything but subjective.

In a culture which has lost its bearings, Tolkien's story has a very important place; from the darkness of war, and today's darkness of human subjectivity, seemingly remote from God, Tolkien wrote a story which goes beyond mere human subjectivity, and places everything on the platform of grace.

Many today are busy trying the recast English literature in a pagan framework, but this will in no way change God's plan.