Posted on 01/03/2011 11:50:39 AM PST by Pyro7480
“The spirit of wickedness in high places is now so powerful and so many-headed in its incarnations,” Tolkien wrote in 1969, “that there seems nothing more to do than personally to refuse to worship any of the hydras’ heads.”
The world, he thought, seemed little better than a new Tower of Babel, “all noise and confusion.”
Yet, armed with Grace, citizens of the City of God should remain constant in their defense of all that is good....
With the Incarnation of Christ, “art has been verified,” Tolkien claimed. “God is the Lord, of angels, and of men–and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused” with the arrival of God in Time, and man has been blessed beyond earthly comprehension....
What then, should we just the gift of Beauty for, for glorification. That Beauty helps move us to do the right thing: there is always hope, no matter what ravages the world brings....
That hope, and especially the Grace imparted by the Incarnation, reminds us that the baptized must sanctify the world and, as St. Paul taught, “redeem the time.” When asked about the meaning of life, Tolkien did not mince words:
[T]he chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis . . . . We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you for the greatness of your splendour....
Today, 119 years after Tolkien’s birth, we would do well to remember the words and ideas of this brilliant (and, perhaps, saintly) Roman Catholic.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicvote.org ...
Catholic ping!
In an article he wrote about Tolkein, Jonah Goldberg noted that the good professor thought that English literature written after Chaucer was too frivolous.
...and he doesn’t look a day over 114...
Or you could revel in my son’s birthday. 16yo today.
He’d puke reading the “literature” of today. I’ve read Tolkein so many times, I’ve memorized it. Now, I’m re-discovering Dickens.
Happy Birthday, Professor Tolkein! Thank you for an epic of sheer terror and joy!
The battle for Helm’s Deep is one of the greatest battle scenes.
Congratulations!
Agreed. I’m re-reading LoTR now and plan on re-reading The Sillmarillion again as well.
. . . that's just my opinion, but give The Warden or Barchester Towers a shot.
My favorite author.
And we are indebted to his son Christopher Tolkien for dedicating much of his life to sharing his father’s unpublished work. Without those works that have been published since Tolkien’s death, we would only have guessed at the level of complexity and completeness which lay beneath the Lord of the Rings universe, and the extent to which that universe was a proving ground for Tolkien’s rich ideas about religion and philosophy.
As every year goes by, my esteem for CS Lewis grows less and less........
Tolkien? Me gusta mucho!!!
Ironically my other son is the Tolkein fan. This one never had any interest in it.
I just began “The Hobbitt” for the gazillionth time.
“The eagles are coming!”
“...Trollope would agree with you better than Dickens . . .”
Good idea. I’d forgotten about Trollope. The last thing I remember reading is The Eustace(sp?) Diamond.
Dickens is so delightfully florid.
Eleventy-nineth birthday.
Eleventy nine already!
[T]he chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis . . . . We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you for the greatness of your splendour....
&&&
Thank you so much for posting this. I had never seen those words from Tolkien before.
I will say that Lizzie Eustace is about the best characterization of a certain type of wicked woman that I've ever seen. She makes Beckie Sharp look like a cardboard cutout.
The problem I have with Dickens (and I know this is heresy, but . . . ) is that his characters are all exaggerations of a single personality quirk. I would not be surprised to meet Archdeacon Grantley or even Rev. Mr. Crawley on the street . . . but I would never expect to meet Mr. Micawber or Magwitch.
The Discarded Image is also extremely good.
I read the books but never seen these words from Tolkien
Happy Birthday Mr. Tolkien with our Lord and Angels!
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