Just in case anyone was wondering…IT’S GREAT BEING A PRIEST!

I have the best job in the world. Of course the word “job” staggers somewhat; but you understand my meaning.

In my heart I truly do not understand why men are not storming the seminary gates seeking formation for Holy Orders. This is such a great life. Who wouldn’t want to spend his life loving and serving Jesus Christ in and through His Bride the Church? I can truly think of no other life for me.

What is the heart of the priesthood? The Holy Eucharist. The whole purpose of our existence as priests is to bring the Eucharist to the people. How great is that? I don’t even bring them myself; that would be pathetic. I’m a miserable wreck. I bring them Jesus Christ. That’s the great thing about the sacraments; they’re not about the priest, they’re about Jesus Christ. They make Jesus present. This mystery defies description. Language fails to adequately express this reality; but it’s exceedingly good news.

Jesus is at the heart of the priesthood. The priest is a sacrament of Jesus; he is a “predicative symbol” an “acting sign” of Jesus Christ. The priest makes present He Who Is Symbolized and the summit of this ministry is the Holy Eucharist. Who wouldn’t want to have the Eucharist at the heart of who they are? Who wouldn’t want their entire day to be focused on bringing Jesus Himself to the people of God?

Of course another huge part of the priesthood is the Ministry of the Word. Even before I came to the seminary the question which burned hottest in my heart was, “How can I show others the incomparable beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?” When I was studying philosophy, my professors noticed that I was always looking for catechetical or pastoral applications for the material. My question became, “How can Aristotle’s genius help me explain Truth Himself?” or, “How can Pascal’s apologetic be helpful in today’s context?” In my catechetical and homiletic preparation the question becomes, “What can be said that will best invigorate the faith of God’s people?” This work is awesome, both as a responsibility and as a joy to be the Holy Spirit’s instrument.

Another “duty” of the priest is prayer. Growth in holiness is part of our marching orders. We make a solemn promise to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day. It's as if God says to us, “Oh, by the way guys, prayer and spiritual progress are part of your package deal, so get to it!” Thus sanctification and death to self are fundamental to our vocation. Not bad. By God’s grace I might even get to heaven if I am faithful to this plan from above.

One of the greatest consolations of the priesthood is the people. The people of God are astonishing. Their faith, hope, love and beauty are of divine origin. There is no other way to explain it. I see God in them. So clearly. They reflect and magnify the perfections of the Almighty. They overwhelm me. I love them so much. What more can be said? It’s no wonder God loves them so, and sent His Son to bleed and die to save them (and me); they are so lovable. It is an indescribable privilege so serve them, weak sinner though I am.

My message at the end of 2003 to any who might wonder or doubt: priesthood is a great life.

Yes, yes, I know: lots of homilies and not much else. In these last days of the year (and first days of the New Year) we priests are engaged in a homily marathon: Christmas, Holy Family, Mary Mother of God and Epiphany all in a row. It’s a churchy time of year. So here’s another homily (or at least my notes, verbal delivery is always much different). After the New Year I’m sure I’ll have time for something else (famous last words…).

Homily Notes: Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph 2003

God is. As Sirach 43:27 says, “He is the all.” He is all in all. He is the nature of all reality. “He is greater than all his works.” (Sirach 43:28) The grand incomparable immensity of the universe, in all its staggering complexity is but God’s fragile little web which He has breathed into existence. (William Riordan, S.T.D.)

As Pope John Paul II said in Puebla Mexico, “God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude but a family. For He has within Himself, Fatherhood, Sonship and the essence of family: love, the Holy Spirit.” From the fullness of this “plurality” within God (without denying His essential unity) God has created.

We are made imago Dei, in the image and likeness of God. We are beings created by God for our own sake. (Gaudium et spes, 20) God did not need to create us in order to satisfy some lack within Himself; for He is the boundless abundance of all super-perfections. Rather, God created us to know and to love for our own sake, “To the praise of His glorious grace.” (Ephesians 1:5-6)

Unfortunately our first parents rejected God through sin. We continue the miserific family tradition through every sort of pride, lust, greed, anger, hate, envy, sloth, gluttony, malice, pettiness, selfishness, ego-centrism and in countless other sins.

Yet God did not reject us in our sin. On the contrary, “When we were lost and could not find the way, you loved us more than ever.” Jesus came to free us from our sins; just as Chesterton replied when asked why he had become Catholic, “To get my sins forgiven.”

Yet Jesus came to do even more than save us from our sins. He came to sanctify us, to make us holy, to give us His grace: His divine life, His divine beauty. It is worthwhile to attend to the circumstances in which He came. He came to us through a family: the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

The Holy Family reflects God’s own inner Trinitarian life. In every creche scene the child Jesus is open for us to see. Mary and Joseph do not “circle the wagons” around the child, cutting Him off from us. On the contrary, we are invited to become members of Christ’s divine family. Through baptism we become brothers and sisters of Jesus. Similarly, at Golgotha Jesus made Mary our mother too. (John 19:26-27) These are not pious platitudes; this is the reality of the Christian dispensation.

Our families are invited to reflect the Holy Family. Our families are called to image God’s Trinitarian family life. Of course sin within our families demands ongoing forgiveness, but the power of grace enables us to love selflessly in our families where it is particularly difficult. No one can get “under our skin” and “push our buttons” like family. Thus family life is an opportunity to practice heroic charity.

Our ultimate incorporation, literally, into God’s family comes through the Eucharist. Through the Eucharist we share in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and so are in communion with God and one another. I am closer to my brother the priest in Virginia by virtue of the Eucharist than I am by my mere blood relationship with him. The latter is human, the former divine. The latter will not survive the grave; the former will endure unto eternal life.

The Eucharist makes us truly members of the Holy Family: children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus and of each other.

Homily Notes: Christmas 2003


C. S. Lewis argued (rightly as always) that innate desires correspond to real objects. So we hunger and there is food; we get sleepy and there is rest, etc. Lewis used this as a powerful psychological argument for the existence of God and heaven.

One of our most fundamental desires is for meaning.

If I were to say, "Je m’appelle David. Comment vous appelez-vous?" Or, "eudaimonia," or "kecharitomene" and you spoke neither French nor Koine Greek your immediate reaction would be, “What did he just say?” or, “What is he talking about?” The fundamental inquiry behind each interrogatory is, “What is the meaning here?”

We seek meaning on much deeper and more imperative issues. As Pope John Paul II pointed out in Fides et Ratio, we ask questions such as, “Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? What is the meaning of my life; does it have any purpose? Why do I suffer? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?”

If Lewis is right (and he is), then since the desire for answers to these questions are innate, they correspond to real objects. In other words, the answer exists.

The answer is this child. A baby!

And with His life and teaching and suffering, death and resurrection He resolves these fundamental questions.

Consider how God addressed our search for meaning. He did not send us propositions to form a logical argument. He did not send us a scientific formula or a laboratory experiment. He sent us a person. He sent us His son.

Consider the package. Consider how God decided to answer our questions. Note first how it was God’s initiative to place the questions in our hearts and then come to us with an answer. Note how Jesus did not come. He could have come in terrible, overwhelming power and glory as at Mt. Tabor. He could have come as an emperor with limitless might and irresistible force. But He did not.

He came as a baby.

A newborn, hidden in a tiny village on the edge of the known world, a babe, with nowhere to rest His head from the very first moment of His life, housed in a stable with beasts of burden amidst all their slop, completely vulnerable, wholly humble, thoroughly gentle, peaceful, meek and unassuming.

Who could be afraid of a baby? God comes to save His people, and how does He come? As a child. How disarming. How accessible. Who could not accept such an advent? What is the universal, immediate reaction of all sane people to an encounter with a baby? Joy. Delight. Peace. And this is precisely the reaction He wills for us to have.

We give gifts to one another at Christmas, and rightly so. What gift does this babe come to bring us? Himself.

What does this child want from us? An intimate relationship of deep friendship, communion and love in this life, and eternal, ecstatic, joy-filled, divine life with Him and all His creation forever in heaven.

Who could not accept such a gift this Christmas?

More on Tolkien…I just cant stop!!!

Ok, I confess; I’m a Tolkien fanatic. I have been since I was 11 years old. Anyone who could create such a multifaceted, monumental treasure of truth, goodness, beauty and wisdom acquires immediate trust from me. This man was grand, a culture unto himself.

As a priest, one of my pet peeves is a tendency among some of the people to “shop” for the parish that makes them “feel good.” As if the worship of Almighty God were simply a matter of subjective sentiment. Leaving aside all other questions of liturgical abuse, the use of Latin, impoverished music, the Ordo Missae of Paul VI, etc., some people merely seek out a pleasing “experience.”

This perspective limps. And Tolkien addressed it. The following text comes from a letter to his son. (It appeared in Magnificat several months ago; I checked with a copywrite attorney who holds both a Ph.D. in communications and a J.D. and he told me the following qualifies as "fair use.")

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, honor, 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 of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires...

The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion…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: 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…Go to Communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same as a Mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people…

Tolkien has much on the mark here and he was right, in part, because the worship of Jesus Christ is more important than any of the external trappings of the Sacred Liturgy (not that the externals are unimportant). The virtues of the priest are not that crucial. The reality of what happens in the Sacred Liturgy and what it does to us is more important than our subjective experience. The sacraments do not depend on our understanding or sentiment. There is so much more going on in the Holy Mass than how the music makes us feel or what “experience” we have. So many on all sides of the ecclesiastical civil war seem to miss this massive forest for some pinecones.

We all know that Vatican II called for “full, conscious, active participation” by the people in the liturgy. (SC, 14) However, this translation is somewhat misleading. The actual Latin of Sacrosanctum Concilium is “participationem actuosam,” not activam. So a more accurate translation of Vatican II might be a “full, conscious, [integral, genuine] participation” in the liturgy. Actuosa is a richer word than activa; it includes and goes beyond activa.

According to Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei, interior participation in the Mass is the goal. What matters most is what is going on in our hearts, not what we wear, or what we do. The interior disposition of agape, selfless love, is the most important reality for the Christian. Our exterior activity, posture, dress, etc., should reflect our inner disposition.

Mere activity for its own sake is vanity. Liturgy as sentimentality is vanity.

Today has been quite busy…confessions a-plenty, a wedding and the TV Mass. (Our parish tapes our Saturday Vigil Mass and then broadcasts it on Sunday morning. We’re on Fox throughout mid-Michigan!!! Therefore I had to get my homily ready earlier today and so…here’s a post…)

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth
Homily Notes: 4th Sunday of Advent (C)

Obscurity. What do we have in the Visitation? On the surface we see a young girl from the little-known and unimportant town of Nazareth in Galilee, coming to an even more obscure village, Ein-Karem (the name means “spring of the vineyard”) on the outskirts of Jerusalem. There are several springs in Ein-Karem. Tradition holds that when Elizabeth first greeted Mary as she neared the village, a spring of water welled-up at the feet of the two holy women.

Insignificance. From the world’s point of view, how insignificant this meeting seems. These appear to be two nondescript women, with ostensibly no power, influence or significance. They were certainly not women of “nobility.” We have no reason to think that they were prominent, wealthy or highly educated, on the contrary.

Beauty. And yet how beautiful, how familial, how attractive and gentle this scene is: two pregnant women, one surprisingly old, the other quite young. Both are beautiful in the same way. Their beauty springs from grace. Grace is God’s divine life that He shares with us. The root meaning of the word in Greek (charis) is beauty. These women are beautiful because they are filled with God’s divine beauty, God’s grace, His heavenly gilding.

Veiled. How much is hidden here. How much is secret at this point. Elizabeth has one in her womb who will act “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” (Luke 1:17) The Blessed Virgin Mary, who seems so young and simple, is in fact the living Ark of the New Covenant. (Revelation 11:19-12:2) Unlike the Ark of the Old Covenant which was merely a wooden box covered in gold containing broken stone fragments of the Law, Mary has the living Word of God dwelling in her womb. Not words written on broken tablets of stone, but the living Word made flesh. The Blessed Mother Mary with Christ dwelling in her was the first and greatest tabernacle. She perpetually rejoices in adoration before her God, her Son. Even the infant Baptist leaps for joy at the presence of Jesus hidden in Mary.

Power. How much power is present here. This is, in fact, a meeting of four, not two. These children will turn the world upside down, our Lord Jesus Christ so much so that all time is split in two at His coming, as Archbishop Sheen used to say. The explosive force of the Visitation even shakes the foundations of our own age. A dilemma: this power, so small, so gentle, so hidden in the Visitation is in fact infinite. It comes from God Himself.

Consider Jesus Christ truly present in the Eucharist. In 19,000 parishes across the United States how obscure He is. How ignored, how overlooked He is. The world passes by and almost no one notices. Our God, hidden under the accident of bread seems insignificant. He is with us perpetually, in silence, in vulnerability, in unimaginable humility. He is completely hidden.

And yet how beautiful He is in the Blessed Sacrament. The word Eucharist in Greek literally means “good grace.” Remember how beauty is the root meaning of the word grace. In the Rite of Benediction there is a line where the priest says, “You have given them bread from heaven” and the people respond, “Having all sweetness within it.” In Latin, the literal translation of the people’s response is, “Having within it every delight.” Every delight indeed, our God is the author and perfection of every delight. This is the Good News the world needs to hear.

Consider yourself. One might say, “I'm unimportant, I'm obscure. I’m not the President or the Pope. I’m not a four-star general, or a CEO of a Fortune-500 company. I live in the mid-West, in East Lansing Michigan, not in Manhattan, or Los Angeles, or Paris or Prague. How insignificant I seem.” And yet, and yet, and yet, you are precisely the sort of person God has worked with in the past and will work with in the future. God likes to work in calm, with the seemingly “obscure,” obscure to the world perhaps, but not to God, the definitive audience. If you are open to Him, He will work with you in quiet and in peace and rest. He has unlimited attention for you and since you are part of His divine plan your role is infinitely important.

Do you know how beautiful you are? As a priest, I am married to Christ’s bride, His Church, and she is achingly beautiful. I do not merely mean the obviously beautiful ones. Sure the children and teens and twenty-somethings are beautiful, but so are the seniors, those in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond. Their beauty shines in their eyes and in their smiles; it is obvious to anyone who works with them. Their beauty springs from grace, God’s divine life, God’s divine beauty, glowing in them.

How great is God’s power in our lives. His work in us is like a tree thrusting its roots down deep. The action is slow and hidden but formidable. These roots shatter stone and shape the earth. The tap-root runs to magnificent depths.

God can and will work His great power in us through the Eucharist which extends the Visitation into our own lives. We become the tabernacle. We bear Christ in us, just as the Virgin did. And we bring Christ to the world, just as she did. Although we walk out of the world’s limelight, we grow in God’s beauty and God’s power.

The Return of the King

Who can deny that Peter Jackson, director of the mega-hit Lord of the Rings series, has given us a beautiful cinematic rendering of Tolkien’s monumental work? Even the most impartial observer would be hard-pressed to deny that these are some of the finest films of our time. They’re simply glorious. How often does a priest use that adjective to describe the fruits of Hollywood?

Now Tolkien purists (and I count myself as one of them) could take issue with Jackson on any number of commissions and omissions in the films. While such criticisms are legitimate and supply ample grist for the debater’s mill, they fail to take the long view. No movie could ever completely incarnate Tolkien’s grand opus. There will always be much more in the books. Indeed, a formal comparison is completely unfair. These films have to be evaluated as translations of Tolkien into a different medium. A purist who condemns them expects too much.

The best thing about these movies is that they are a powerful means of stealth-evangelization. The films are subliminal pre-catechesis; they diffuse a Catholic worldview onto the audience. God will work through them to move hearts to conversion. Self-sacrifice, long-suffering, loyalty, honor, courage, redemption, friendship, hospitality, patience, family, wisdom and learning are magnified and celebrated in these movies. Whereas pride, malice, treachery, lust, despair, betrayal, addiction and egoism are unmasked and condemned. Hierarchy is not a four-letter word in Tolkien’s lexicon or Jackson’s movies.

I am convinced that Tolkien’s books were inspired by the Holy Spirit. (Obviously not on the same order as Holy Scripture but inspired nonetheless.) These books are true. This is why people are so attracted to them. As Peter Kreeft said, in our time they ring out like a clear bell in a foggy swamp. They reveal Truth Himself. No doubt that’s why The Lord of the Rings, in three separate polls, was named the Book of the Century. I imagine that these movies will go down as some of the greatest of all time for the very same reason.

These movies are great because they are true. We recognize ourselves in this story. Good is real. Evil is real. Good is at war with evil and the most powerful weapons in the hands of The Good are self-sacrifice, humility and friendship (another word for Communion, also another word for love in pre-modern languages.) In spite of the limitations inherent in bringing Tolkien’s literary efforts onto the screen, we must thank Peter Jackson and all those involved in bringing us these films.

Anyone interested in hearing more from me on The Lord of the Rings, can read my post from Wednesday, December 10, 2003, below. I’ll probably have more to say in days ahead since I’m preparing a mid-January talk for my parish on this subject.

St. Robert Bellarmine Sums up My Blog

"The school of Christ is the school of charity. In the last day, when the general examination takes place, there will be no question at all on the text of Aristotle, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, or the Paragraphs of Justinian. Charity will be the whole syllabus."

'tis the Season

I take my hat off to any priest who can post to a blog over the next 10 days. All of us are knee-deep in penance services, appointments, and homily preparation on top of our regular duties. The people too are experiencing the gloomy transformation of the season of "peace on earth" into the season of "stress on earth." Many are coming to me in these days in crisis.

What to do? Follow Jesus' commandment, “This I command you: love one another.” This is not a suggestion; this is not a recommendation; this is not a proposal; this is not advice. This is a non-negotiable imperative from God Almighty!

What to do? Hold fast in hopeful expectation to the coming of Christ in our midst.

Some Preliminaries

Who am I?

“Pray for me that God may put his word on my lips, that I may courageously make known the mystery of the Gospel.” Ephesians 6:19

I am a Catholic Priest of the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan. Some biographical data...I am the oldest of 3. My brother Jim is a priest serving All Saints Parish, in Manassas, Virginia, the largest Catholic church in the state of Virginia. My sister Nancy is a Social Worker in Washington DC. My mother Peggy is a librarian in Washington DC. My father died in 1974; he was an eye surgeon whose medical practice took my family to Billings, Montana where I grew up. Later we moved to Northern Virginia to be closer to my mother’s family and so I graduated from Bishop O’Connell High School in Falls Church, Virginia. After 12 years of Catholic schools, I completed my BA at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia with a double major in Economics and International Relations.

Immediately after college, I went to the seminary to study philosophy under Peter Kreeft, with the Oblates of the Virgin Mary in Boston. After 2 years of study, it became clear that I needed to discern my vocation outside the seminary so I worked for a few years in Washington DC. After completing a Master’s in Social Work at the University of Michigan, I spent time as a substance abuse counselor and later as a child and family therapist at Catholic Social Services in Adrian, Michigan. After a few years of work and prayer away from the seminary it became clear the God was still calling me to the priesthood. My experience with fine priests and great people in Michigan let me to reenter the seminary as a student for the Diocese of Lansing.

After four years at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit I graduated with an M. Div. and an MA in Theology (Systematics and Scripture). I am in my third year as a priest, still at my first assignment at St. Thomas Aquinas in East Lansing Michigan, home of Michigan State University (remember, I attended the University of Michigan; it seems that God appreciates irony).

I love my vocation. I love being a priest. I cannot imagine any other life for me. The longer I am a priest the more confirmed I feel in my call to orders and the more joy I take in my vocation. Although I am only in my third year, I have found that each year has been better than the last. Of course there are difficulties and sufferings day by day, but these are great opportunities for grace and growth.

I am deeply happy in my assignment at St. Thomas Aquinas. I have grown a great deal in my time here. The academic environment in particular has been tremendously stimulating.

Why did I start this blog?

I must admit that I have been intrigued by the phenomenon of blogging for some time. However, when I came across two young parishioners of mine (read: 12 and 14, you guys know who you are) who have their own blogs, it occurred to me that this could be a good medium for me to keep in touch with family, friends, parishioners and former parishioners who are separated from me by distance.

Further, I hope that this blog can be an extension of my Ministry of the Word beyond my own parish and even diocese. We shall see.

Ok, I managed to add a comment feature to this blog. That was a priority. This will only be fun if it is interactive. So, now I am going to tell my friends about this and see if I get any encouragement...

Here's is a temporary post, just to try this whole thing out. This is the basic text of an article I wrote which appeared in Faith magazine a few months ago...it's on The Lord of the Rings

Catholic Christianity in The Lord of the Rings

Tolkien's Catholic Faith

Although it is not widely know, J. R. R. Tolkien was a convert to the faith and a devout Catholic throughout his life. His parents died while he as still young and he was subsequently raised by a priest.

He had a deep faith which influenced all aspects of his life. His spirituality centered on the Eucharist. He once wrote in a letter to his son, "I hold before you the one thing to love in life, the Blessed Sacrament." Describing his Catholic faith Tolkien wrote, "I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning--and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again." He also wrote of the "never-ceasing silent appeal of the Tabernacle." (See: Joseph Pearce, Tolkien Man and Myth, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998, p.199 [TMM])

In a 1953 letter to Robert Murray, a Jesuit priest, Tolkien wrote, "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision For the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism." (TMM, 100)

The Lord of the Rings as Myth

The Lord of the Rings is a sort of myth. For most modern critics a myth is merely another word for a lie or a falsehood, something which is intrinsically not true. For Tolkien, myth had virtually the opposite meaning. For him, it was the only way that certain transcendent truths could be expressed in intelligible form. (TMM, XIII) Tolkien once wrote, "Legends and myths are largely made of 'truth.'" They are symbolic stories designed to express truth. The use of myth conveys qualities that prose and analysis cannot capture. "A myth is a story which captures a universal truth about human experience which cannot be matched by ordinary fiction, historical narration, or scientific theory." And "the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works in the same ways as the others, but a myth that really happened." (TMM, p. 58)

The Ring as an Ant-Sacrament

Obviously one of the central elements in The Lord of the Rings is the ring itself. The ring is sort of analogous to the effects of evil and sin. Dr. Thomas Howard points out how it's a sort of anti-sacrament or sacramental travesty. Just as grace, God's divine life, comes to us through the sacraments in our world, so slavery and evil come through the anti-sacramental ring in Middle Earth.

The ring corrupts, enslaves, dehumanizes, unravels, and destroys. Like sin, the more one uses the ring the more of a hold it has on you. To use the ring is to fade, to become invisible. Like evil, it sucks life away. It makes people unlike themselves. It makes Bilbo unlike Bilbo. It makes Frodo unlike Frodo. It destroys Boromir. It transforms the sublime beauty of Galadriel to a hideous terror. It made the hobbitish creature Smeagol into the beastly Gollum.

The Nature of Evil in The Lord of the Rings

One Christian theme seen in The Lord of the Rings is the nature of evil. Through The Lord of the Rings we see that evil only signifies privation; it has no being of its own. Evil ruins, bends, corrupts, negates, and demeans that which is good. Evil is parasitic, it cannot make anything of its own, only twist something good that already exists. Thus orcs are false elves, and trolls are counterfeit ents. And so we read in The Return of the King, "The shadow that bred them can only mock, not make." In the world of myth all is visible. The creatures of Middle Earth are like "visible souls." And there we see an incarnation of all aspects of evil.

Through The Lord of the Rings we learn that evil cannot appreciate the good. Lembas bread is "dust and ashes" to Gollum. Gollum has taste buds unfit for joy. This is similar to how the joys of paradise would be horrors to those in hell. Ego-centrists would hate the heavenly city of God. Likewise, evil cannot understand the good. The lecher cannot understand purity. The self-indulgent cannot understand self-renunciation. Thus Sauron cannot conceive that anyone would destroy the ring of power. This is the fundamental hope of the quest. Evil is blind to goodness. Sauron cannot fathom what simple Sam can see. Evil is inane; it gives up the good of the intellect.

Self Sacrifice in The Lord of the Rings

We also see Christ's teaching that there is "no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend" writ large in The Lord of the Rings. Notable examples of self-sacrificing characters include Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf and even Boromir who died defending Merry and Pippin, shortly after his repentance. Frodo and Sam sacrifice themselves to save the Shire. Frodo and Sam give up the Shire in order to save it. Indeed, all the protagonists embrace suffering as a requirement of "working out their salvation." (Philippians 2:12)

The Nature of Goodness in The Lord of the Rings

Finally, we also discover something about the nature of goodness in The Lord of the Rings. Angels know God's majesty and goodness directly, without any mediation. As Catholics, we come to know God's goodness through the liturgy. It addresses our imaginations; it puts a face on the abstraction of good. God has made us in totality, with bodies. Thus it is good for the soul if the knees are on the floor, it gives a physical manifestation of our soul's disposition.

We can come to understand goodness through Aristotle's Ethics, but we can appreciate goodness and be attracted to it in another way by looking at Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, or Treebeard. For example, Sam displays the good of simple faithfulness while Gandalf, like God in a way, manifests the dangerous good. Gandalf reveals the "terrible" good, with majesty, power, and mystery disclosed in his goodness. Gandalf is good, but not safe.

It takes Tolkien's use of myth to convey these themes and illustrate these points. What we have in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a Christian myth for our times, which points to Truth Himself.