All is Calm, All is Bright - But Not For Long

Years ago a friend of mine was with his nephew in the card department of a store at Christmas time.  The nephew (around 12 at the time) was shocked to hear a boy about his age ask his Dad, “Who is this baby on all the cards?”  My friend’s nephew went to Catholic School and had been taken to Sunday Mass by his parents since he was an infant.  He could not understand how someone could live in Canada and not know that the baby on Christmas cards was Jesus.

Today it is more common to find Christmas cards with Santa, Christmas trees and poinsettas than a picture of a baby on them.  We who have grown up in families that attend church services are so used to seeing pictures of the baby Jesus and hearing carols about singing angels, shepherds and wise men, Mary, Joseph and Jesus that they seem commonplace. Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm, all is bright - it is a picture that comes to our minds all through Christmas season.  But it didn’t take long for things to take an ugly turn.  You might say all hell broke loose.

St. Matthew is the only Gospel writer who tells us the story of the men from the east who came to Jerusalem to find a baby born to be king of the Jews.  They are called ‘wise men’ by St. Matthew -some think they were astrologers possibly because they had followed a star. Traditionally there are three because they brought three gifts to the baby - gold, frankincense and myrrh - but there could have been more or or even less than three.  It is said they were ‘wise men from the East’, but no one knows where they came from.

In Jerusalem, the travellers visited Herod the Great who strived to stay on the right side of the Roman rulers and was doing quite well at it, thank you.  Herod had built a palace at Caesarea Maritima (in honour of Caesar Augustus) and though he maintained he was a Jew, did everything he could to stay in Caesar’s good graces.  Caesar Augustus claimed the title ‘Son of god’ for himself as his stepfather, Julius Caesar was worshipped by the Romans as god.  When, years later, Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, St. Peter answered, “You are the Son of the living God.’ that is, not the son of a dead god, Julius Caesar.

Herod the Great was a ruthless man who murdered anyone who got in his way, including his own wife and sons.  When Herod heard from the visitors that there had been a baby born who was to be King of the Jews, he felt his place as ‘king’ was seriously threatened.  He found out that Bethlehem was the insignificant town that the prophet Micah, who had prophesied 700 years earlier, would be the birthplace of ‘...a ruler who will govern my people Israel.’ (Micah 5:2).  And so that is where Herod advised the men to go and cunningly told them to bring him news about the baby so that he could go and worship him, too.  The wise men did not suspect Herod’s intentions, so perhaps they were not all that wise after all.

The men did find the baby with his mother Mary and Joseph now in a house in Bethlehem and presented him with the three gifts, gold (because he was a King), frankincense (because he was a priest) and myrrh (because he would die).  Fortunately, God warned them not to return to Herod, and they went back to their country by a different route.

Joseph also had a dream that was that he should flee to Egypt with the child and his mother because Herod was planning to find the child and destroy him.

Herod was not happy about being tricked by the wise men and sent his soldiers to kill all the boys under two years old and under in Bethlehem.  Does this mean that the story of the wise men’s visit could have been up to two years after Jesus’ birth?  As Bethlehem was a small town, there may not have been that many boys killed, but their mothers surely wept for them.  “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they were no more.”  They are remembered as the Holy Innocents and the first martyrs.

The Holy Family stayed in Egypt until they heard that Herod the Great had died.

Jesus continued to be in danger throughout his life.  Like Herod, the Devil (or Satan or whatever you like to call the embodiment of all evil) does not like to lose his role as ‘ruler of the world’.  Herod’s son, also King Herod, had St. John the Baptist the forerunner of the Messiah, killed.  Several times people tried to kill Jesus, and finally, they did succeed.  The charge was blasphemy - he claimed to be God.  The joke is he is God, and it was God’s plan for him to die in order to save us all along!  Jesus conquered death by his death and resurrection.

Today, those who believe Jesus is God are often denounced, laughed at, made fun of and sometimes, also killed.  Yes, one could say, “all hell broke loose” and still is. But, in the end, the devil will have no greater success than Herod did.

Origins of Christmas and Traditions

As we approach December 25th people are seen scurrying around shopping for gifts, decorating trees and baking yummy cookies and cakes. But surprisingly, there are still many who do not know the origins of Christmas and of the traditions and customs associated with it.
Over two million people world-wide celebrate Christmas. Different traditions have become part of the celebration, some are unique to specific countries. The origin of Christmas itself, however, the 'Mass of Christ' is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and is shared by all who are Christians. This sounds simple but Christians believe that Jesus is God ie The Incarnation or God taking on flesh (carne - flesh in Latin). So why did God become man and why is there a birth to celebrate?

The Promised Messiah
In many of the writings of the prophets in the Jewish Bible (known to Christians as the Old Testament) a Messiah is promised. 'Messiah' is from Hebrew (although Anglicized) for Anointed One and the Greek equivalent is 'Christus'. These prophets said that the promised Messiah would be of the line of King David Isaiah 11:1-5, (Jesse was David's father); would be born in Bethlehem, David's home city (I Samuel 16:1, Micah 5:1); and that the mother of this Promised One would be a virgin (Isaiah 7:14 ). In Isaiah the word used in Hebrew means young woman implying virginity. The Gospel writer, Matthew, records Joseph's dream encouraging him to take Mary as his wife and quotes the Isaiah passage from the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible (the Septuagint) using the more technical term for virgin. Mary and Joseph were only engaged and not yet married and so Mary was a virgin. Joseph thinking that Mary, who was now pregnant, had been unfaithful to him, was not going to marry her (following Jewish Law) but God spoke to Joseph in a dream reminding him of the prophecy in Isaiah. Joseph knew then that this child had been chosen somehow by God. Did he realize, as well, that he was the Promised Messiah? We don't know how much the young couple understood all of the implications at that time but Mary was told the child will "...be great, and will be called the son of the Most High; and the Lord will give to him the throne of His father David and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there will be no end." So it must have been clear to Mary that her Son was the Messiah.
Jesus and Mary then travelled to Bethlehem, the city of their ancestors, for a census called by the Roman Emperor. Jesus was born in a cave used as a stable because all the inns were full.
The first Christians were Jews who believed that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies. The name Jesus, in Hebrew, Yeshua, means 'Yhwh helps' or 'God helps'. When Jesus grew up he gained the reputation of a Rabbi (or Teacher) and healer. Once, in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus read from the prophet, Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. As he rolled up the scroll, he said, 'Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing'". Before the crowd in the synagogue, Jesus, himself, had claimed to be the Promised One that is,  the Messiah.
Christians believe that Jesus is the Saviour and that he died for the sins of all humanity.

Star and Angels
The story of Christ's birth (told by the Gospel writer, Matthew) says that the Wisemen (or Magi) were led to the place of Jesus' birth by following a star. These were men from somewhere in Asia and had studied and kept track of stars. It is usually thought that there were three Wisemen. This is because there are three gifts mentioned: frankincense, myrrh and gold but there may have been more or fewer men. These gifts foretell that Jesus was priest (frankincense), that he would die (myrrh) and that He was a King (gold) whose kingdom would not end. 
The gospel writers tell us that angels announced the birth of the Messiah to shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem. Both Wisemen and angels are used on Christmas cards and decorations at Christmas time.

Date of Jesus Birth
Of course, most Christians now know that December 25th is probably not the actual date that Jesus was born. It is unlikely that the census was held in winter and shepherds and their sheep may not have been out in the fields on 'a cold winter's night'. However, it seems that December 25th was celebrated in Rome as the Birth of Christ as early as 354 AD. (AD is Anno Dominum or The Year of Our Lord and not 'after death' as is sometimes thought). The Catholic Encyclopedia says that the solar feast, Natalis Invicti, in the cult of Sun worship, is the probable source of December 25th as the birthday of Jesus. The Church often took over the feasts that were celebrated by the people before their conversion to Christianity. Thus the celebration also underwent a conversion of sorts; people still celebrated on the same day, but the reason for the celebration had changed. Cyprian wrote, "O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born...Christ should be born". But both Tertullian and Augustine condemned this comparison with Sol Invictus asserting that the Sun should not be identified with Christ. Some believe that using the pagan feast day was syncretistic while others think it was not a bad idea. Perhaps the latter turned out to be  right because today, most people in the world have heard of Christmas but not many have ever heard of Natalis Invicti.
Another explanation comes from a quotation from St. Augustine, who writes in On the Trinity (c.399-419), “For he (Jesus) is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day he also suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him not since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th”. December 25th is nine months after March 25.

Gift Giving
The origin of giving gifts to friends and family at Christmas is most likely the gifts the Wisemen or Magi gave to Jesus (see story in Matthew 2). Though in the modern telling of the story, these Wisemen came to the stable shortly after the birth of Jesus, the visit was probably much later. The Gospel writer records that King Herod had all baby boys up to age 2 years killed in order to dispose of a possible threat to his throne. Having been warned in a dream, Joseph took Mary and Jesus and travelled to Egypt and so Jesus escaped what is known as 'The Slaughter of the Innocents'. Scripture is silent on the timing and, in fact, only Matthew records the visit of the Magi.

Santa Claus
Santa Claus is from the Dutch, Sinterklaas, or in English, Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas was a bishop in Myra, Lycia (now Turkey) who died December 6, 345AD or 352AD. St. Nicholas' relics are now in the Church of San Nicola in Bari, Italy after being stolen (or rescued, depending on who tells it) by Italian sailors and taken there. Although very little is known about Nicholas, there are legends that during his lifetime he gave gifts to poor children and performed many miracles. He is the patron saint of mariners, bakers, travellers and children. In parts of Northern Europe (Holland and Germany, for example) art has portrayed him as giving gifts secretly to children on his feast day (December 6). In North America, he has become the red-suited Santa Claus (known to Christians and non-Christians alike) who gives gifts to children on Christmas Eve. We owe many of the ideas we have of Santa Claus today to Clement Clarke Moore who in 1823 wrote the poem 'The Night Before Christmas'. It was from this poem that the red-suited jolly man, who comes in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, originated and gained popularity in the West.

The Christmas Tree
Druids and other pre-Christian peoples in Europe used greenery, including mistletoe, to decorate their houses on festive occasions. In c.575 AD, Archbishop Martin of Braga forbade Christians to use yule logs, greenery or trees in their celebrations so as not to be identified with unbelievers.  However, the Christmas tree was still used at Strasbourg in the 17th century and came to the rest of France and England in the 19th century.  Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's German husband, was said to have introduced the decorated Christmas tree to England. Christian advocates of the Christmas tree claim that the evergreen tree symbolizes eternal life and the resurrection and point out that Jesus died on a tree for our salvation.  Today, the decorated tree is popular in many countries that do not have a Christian heritage. For example, in Thailand, a predominately Buddhist country, the decorated tree has been adopted as a decoration in stores for the New Year celebration.

The Nativity Scene
St. Francis of Assisi in the 10th century is credited for using and popularizing the creche or nativity scene with the characters of the Biblical story around the manger. These are seen in churches but also in public parks and shopping malls.

Other Traditions
There are of course other traditions associated with Christmas: carol singing, the turkey dinner (in North America), the colours of red and green for decoration are just a few.  Certain countries have their own additions: Mexico has the pinata (a paper mache container filled with candy and gifts), the Philippines has Simbang Gabi (the Mass of the Rooster) and there are many more traditions that include special food, music and activities, in countries like Norway, Germany, Italy and Spain.

References
New Advent/ Catholic Encylopedia website accessed June 30 and July 1, 2011.
New American Bible. St. Joseph Edition. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co. 1992
Seal, Jeremy. Nicholas. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. 2005.

The City of Ephesus

 In many historical sources, the city of Ephesus was described as a leading seaport of the region but searches for it on the coast of Turkey proved fruitless.  Then in 1860, when J Wood, an Englishman,  was building a railroad, the ruins of a city were accidentally discovered.   The river Meander or Menderes had left deposits of silt in the delta making what had once been a seaport now about 6 miles inland from the port of Kusadasi (now in Turkey).    Archaeologists have been digging in Ephesus for 150 years but only 10% of the city has been excavated. 

The Library of Celcius is the two-story building (the front wall only) at the end of the street.   There was supposedly a secret passage from the library to a brothel.  The women went to the market and the men went to the brothel via the library!

A tourist city today

 Tourists today can walk down the main street, Kuret, which leads to the Celcius Library.  The library was situated next to the marketplace.  There is a large theatre nearby where the citizens of Ephesus would have been entertained.  Another interesting place has a row of toilets where the men of the city would gather to gossip as they attended to physical necessities! 

Ephesus and the Goddess Diana

Once this Greek city of Asia Minor was not only wealthy but was the centre of the worship of the nature goddess, Diana (Roman) or Artemis (Greek) and c. 550 B.C. a large temple for her worship was built.

St. Paul in Ephesus

It was to this city that the Apostle Paul came with his friends and fellow Christians, Prisca and Aquilla.  During the time of St Paul, Ephesus was a city in Greece.

 In the first century, when St. Paul came there were about a million people living in Ephesus and it was the second-largest city in the Roman Empire after Rome itself.  It was here that St. Paul was driven out of town by the silversmiths of Ephesus who feared losing their livelihood because of many conversions to Christianity (Acts 19).  The man who gathered the silversmiths together to riot was Demetrius and their trade was making silver images of Artemis which the Christians refused to buy.  St. Paul left but the Christian community continued to grow and one of St. Paul's letters to the Church in Ephesus is part of the New Testament today.  It is also mentioned by St. John as one of the Seven Churches in the Book of Revelation.  A Basilica was built in the 4th century over what is believed to be the site of St John’s burial.

Mary’s House

Tradition says that St. John brought the Virgin Mary from Nazareth to live with him near Ephesus in order to escape persecution after the death and resurrection of Jesus.   A small house, believed to be the house where she lived is on Mt. Coressus about 8 km from the ruins of the city.

In 1824, a German nun,  Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) saw visions of Mary at this house and described it exactly and said it was near Ephesus.   Ephesus was not discovered until the 1860s.   In 1951 archaeologists from Izmir excavated the area on Mt Coressus and rebuilt the house.  Some parts have been carbon dated as older.  People who lived nearby said that the story was passed down for generations that this was the house where the Virgin Mary the Mother of Jesus had lived.

Pope Paul VI was the first pope to visit the house.  Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict have since visited.  The Roman Catholic Church built the road that leads to the House.  Two priests and three nuns (German) live near the house and look after it and the property is rented from a farmer.

Council of Ephesus

An international Church council was held in Ephesus in 431 BC. at which the Bishop of Constantinople,  Nestorius was declared a heretic because of his rejection of the divine nature of Christ.  He also rejected the title theotokos (Greek: God-bearer) for the Virgin Mary.

References

Travel notes of the city of Ephesus taken by the author.

Erdemgil, Selahattin   Ephesus.  Istanbul: Net Turistik Yayinlar A.S 2009.

Eugenics: Forgotten History

                                                    Charles Darwin

When we think of eugenics we usually think of Hitler, perhaps the most hated man in history. We are reminded of his plan to get rid of Jews, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and others he considered sub-normal human beings.  We may also think of Joseph Mengele, known as the ‘angel of death', who conducted eugenic experiments at Auschwitz on twins, many of whom were children.

But apparently the idea of eugenics and how to improve the human race by eliminating certain people was an idea that had been around for some time before it erupted in Nazi Germany. Darwin wrote about  natural selection, a process in which the best and strongest survive. If this is the case, then the human race should improve naturally. The weak bodied, the weak-minded, those with inherited disabilitating diseases, even homosexuals, it was thought, should naturally disappear in time. But for some in the early 20th-century, natural selection wasn’t doing the job fast enough. What if science accelerated the process of improving human beings so that there would no longer be drug and alcohol addicts, the insane, and the mentally retarded? Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, coined the term ‘eugenics’ in 1883, from its Latin roots meaning ‘good in birth’ or ‘noble heredity’ and it was promoted as a science.

Some well known Americans and British jumped on the bandwagon to improve the human race by eugenics and  backed the idea with their money and their writing. As is usual, the ideas filtered across the border into Canada as we will see. Here are a few  of those in 20th century America who aided the birth of the so-called ‘science of eugenics’.

Charles Benedict Davenport -(1866-1944)  was a Harvard zoologist who said, “Prevent the feeble-minded, drunkards, paupers, sex offenders and the criminalistic from having children or marrying their like, or cousins or any person belonging  to a neuropathic strain.”

Harry Hamilton Laughlin (1880-1943), who with Davenport founded the Eugenic Record Office on Long Island, New York with their staff, compiled detailed records on 534,625 Americans whom they considered defective.  Sixty thousand of them would face sterilization, the males by forced castration. Their aim was to sterilize fourteen million people in the United States and more worldwide to replace them with ‘pure Nordic stock’. Sound familiar?

Davenport had plenty of funds to accomplish this, but soon the Rockefeller Foundation poured in thousands more. In 1914, John Kellogg, brother of the Cereal King, founded the Race Betterment Foundation in Michigan.

 Lucien Howe, was the ophthalmologist who discovered that bathing the eyes of newborns with diluted silver nitrate would save the sight of thousands.  But he was an avowed eugenicist and proposed that blind people should be sterilized and forbidden to marry. The state of New York voted against this so it did not become law there.

In some states, prohibitions of marriage between certain races were prohibited: black/white marriages in several states, white/Asian marriages in Montana, white/Native Americans in other states.  Delaware criminalized marriages of people on welfare!

Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote the decision that was voted on by the United States Supreme Court to uphold legalized sterilization. In 1917 there were only 1,422 sterilized people in institutions in the US, but by 1941 there were 38,087. Not surprisingly, public support for sterilization was not strong and the movement against it was aided by the Hearst newspaper which published horror stories of sterilizations

In 1908, Nova Scotia was home of the first ‘eugenics movement’ in Canada when the League for the Care and Protection of Feebleminded Persons was established in the province. In Quebec, Ontario, and elsewhere, academics and physicians worked to enlist others to publicly support eugenics.

The most damaging sterilization program in Canadian history was afforded via the passing of the Alberta Sterilization Act of 1928. Youths, minorities, and women were sterilized in disproportionately high numbers. Indigenous people and Métis, regardless of age, were also targeted making up 25% of the sterilizations performed even though they represented only 2.3% of the general population in Alberta.  If the persons were deemed 'mentally defective' no consent was required.

British Columbia’s Sexual Sterilization Act, legislated in 1933 and repealed in 1973, closely resembled Alberta’s legislation. In BC however, the Act created a Board of Eugenics, consisting of a judge, psychiatrist, and social worker and fewer people were sterilized there. Many were inmates of Riverview or Essendale Mental Institution.

When the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, they patterned their program of eugenics on American legislation. As well, they received financial assistance from those in the American movement. As we know, it turned into something horrific and 10,000 Jews alone were murdered.  Many more who were deemed ‘undesirable’ by the Nazi regime were also killed. When the truth became known at the end of the war, the world recoiled at the very idea of forced sterilization and getting rid of so-called ‘inferior’ human beings. Instead, it turned to ‘more civilized’ methods of contraception and abortion which was supposed to rescue women from being slaves to their fertility and protect the world from over-population. Those who were deemed the undesirable segments of humanity were targeted. ‘A Woman’s Choice’ was the cry of the day and Margaret Sanger headed a new onslaught on who should be allowed to have babies. 
What will the future bring?  More couples are opting to not have children.  Although abortion has decreased in some years, it has not disappeared by any means.  Artificial contraception is now common and although it was historically forbidden by all Christian denominations, the Anglican Church was the first to say it could be used "in some situations".  Now Christians from all Protestant denominations practice artificial contraception and only in the Catholic Church is it still not allowed (even though many Catholics ignore the Church's teaching). 
China brought in the "one-child policy" which has resulted in not enough women for Chinese men to marry. Will countries bring in forced laws to abort children or limit the number of children a couple can have?  Pope Paul VI made some predictions in his encyclical "Humanae Vitae" and that was one of them.  The suggestion that we can "decrease our carbon footprint" by not having children is a scary reminder that this may be on the horizon.  

The True Tolkien Story

Are the stories of the Hobbits just imaginative tales based in Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology? Or is there more to Middle Earth and the events that fascinate modern readers? The life of the author, Tolkien, gives us a hint of the source of his literary achievements.

Tolkien’s Early Life
JRR (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892. His mother and father, Arnold and Mabel Tolkien, were English but had moved to South Africa where Arnold worked as a banker. The Tolkien family’s home in England had been in Warwickshire but the name ‘Tolkien’ originated in the Saxon Duchies of what later became the German Republic. Mabel Tolkien (nee Suffield), who came from a religious Anglican family, had been a missionary with her sister in Africa before her marriage. The Tolkien family attended Church of England services. Arnold and Mabel had a second son Hilary, born when Ronald, as JRR was called, was only two.
As children, both boys were sickly and the parents decided that Mabel would take the boys back to England in hopes that their health would improve there. Arnold was to follow them when he could resign his post and find similar employment in England. Mabel left when JRR was only two and Hilary just a baby and they settled in Sarehole, a small, quiet village outside Birmingham. Shortly after their arrival in England they received news that Arthur had died of acute peritonitis after influenza.
This was a great tragedy for the family and Mabel was left to raise the two boys by herself. She was qualified to teach and took the education of her sons upon herself teaching them Latin, Greek, literature and mathematics. Even at the age of nine Tolkien began inventing languages but this was thought by his mother to be a waste of time and was discouraged. Mabel did encourage her sons to appreciate fairy stories that were popular in Victorian times, particularly the writings of George MacDonald, Spencer and the Grimm Brothers. She also shared her enthusiasm of nature, classical mythology, pageants and parades with the boys.
Around 1900, Mabel Tolkien converted to Catholicism. It is not known what led her to do this, although there was a surge of interest in Roman Catholicism in Birmingham at that time because of John Cardinal Newman’s conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1845. Newman had been accepted into the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri and established the Oratory in Birmingham in 1851. He was made a Cardinal in 1879 and died in 1890. Birmingham had traditionally been an anti-Catholic city but through the Oratorian Fathers many converted to the Catholic faith.
Mabel Tolkien had depended on her relatives for moral and financial help but her family did not approve of her conversion and a strain was now placed on the relationship. During this time, Mabel came to rely on Father Francis Xavier Morgan, a priest at the Oratory, for advice, especially on the raising of the boys. He was said to have “... a firm but gentle manner, a keen intellect and an unusual sensitivity toward children.” (Grotta-Kurska, p. 33). Father Morgan was influential in the boys’ upbringing and Tolkien said later that he had been like a father to him.

Tolkien and Studies
In 1904, Mabel Tolkien died leaving 12 year old Ronald and Hilary orphans but she had made arrangements for the boys before her death. As she wanted them to continue in the Catholic faith rather than leave them with their Protestant grandparents, Mabel had appointed Father Morgan as their legal guardian and he placed them in a boarding house where other orphans attending the Oratory school lived. Tolkien missed the quiet village of Sarole and although he hated the poverty and squalor of Birmingham he came to enjoy the museums, libraries and parks. Father Morgan took them on trips to the English countryside, to Wales and once even to the Alps for mountain climbing.
Tolkien eventually outgrew the physical weaknesses he had as a child and by age 16 he was an enthusiastic athlete. It was also when he was 16 that he met Edith Bratt, who lived at the same boarding house. She was his first and only love. Edith was also an orphan and from a similar background to Tolkien’s. Because of their youth and because they were expected to concentrate on their education, they were kept apart. In fact, they were even forbidden to write to each other until Tolkien was at Oxford and Edith reached the age of majority!
Tolkien studied at King Edward VI School and chose to focus on Anglo-Saxon studies rather than the usual Classics. In 1911 he was able to begin studies at Exner College at Oxford as an ‘exhibitioner’ which was similar to a scholarship that provided his tuition.

Tolkien and The War
The world was drastically changed in 1914 when the Great War began but Tolkien was determined to finish his degree before joining the army. When he did join as an Oxford graduate he was automatically given a commission. Before being sent to the front in France in 1916, he went on a short leave to Birmingham where he and Edith were married. In France he took part in the terrible Battle of the Somme where many were killed.
After 1917, after suffering trench fever, Tolkien did not see active service again and later that year he and Edith had their first child, John Francis Ruel, the ‘Francis’ after Father Morgan. This first son later became a priest following in the footsteps of Father Francis. The war ended in 1918 and Tolkien worked for a time at the Ministry of Labour. He was able to join the faculty of the University of Leeds in 1921 and returned to Oxford to teach in 1925.

Tolkien at Oxford
One of Tolkien’s closest friends was C.S. Lewis, the author of Tales of Narnia, whom he met while teaching at Oxford. Lewis wrote in his autobiography, “At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both.” (Lewis, p. 216) Tolkien was, of course, a major influence in the conversion of Lewis from atheism to Christianity. Tolkien told a friend, “I got him as far as the Church of England from atheism”. Lewis, who was from Belfast, never became a Catholic although his thinking fits well with Catholicism and his books are loved by Catholics. The two were part of an informal literary group, known as The Inklings, who met at the pub, The Eagle and Child, in Oxford.

Tolkien The Author
Tolkien doesn’t mention Catholicism or Christianity in his books and many of his readers are not aware of the influence that his faith had in his writings. Tolkien once wrote to a friend, “The Lord of the Rings is fundamentally a religious and a Catholic work.” (quoted by Pierce in “Tolkien, Man and Myth: A Literary Life”)
Middle Earth is created, monotheistic and fallen; the primary sin is that of pride. Evil is bound to failure and ‘God’ will bring good out of evil. The enemy, Morgoth, is like Satan. The ring (the symbol of original sin) is destroyed on March 25 which coincides to the Feast of the Annunciation, that is, the date when God became man. In medieval times people believed that this was also the date of the resurrection. Frodo is the one who ‘takes up his cross’ and follows Christ. In our world the cross is the symbol of sin, in Frodo’s world, the ring is the symbol of sin. ‘Elves bred’ is bread to help them on their way. Tolkien once said, “The only cure for sagging or 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.” The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter to his son.
Unfortunately, fans of Tolkien’s works know the background of Norse mythology and Anglo-Saxon tales but often fail to see the important connection between his Catholic faith and his literary works. The books remain popular and the movies (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and now The Hobbit) have fans of all ages but how many of those fans know the real meaning of the characters and plot?

Sources
Grotta-Kurska, Daniel. J.R.R. Tolkien: Architect of Middle Earth. New York: Warner Books. 1976
Lewis, C.S. Surprised by Joy. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1984
Pierce, Joseph. Tolkien: A Catholic Worldview. EWTN television, December 15