Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
Wasn't Tolkien one of members of the translation committee for the Jerusalem Bible?
His message resonates even today with many who feel they have no voice. We are in no way out of the woods yet. His public display of Latin responses is inspirational. Perhaps not a member of clergy, but sure should have been.
I attend both the EF and the OF, and have for my whole life (I'm 37). For at least 15 years, I too have made the responses only in Latin, though I tend to whisper them so as not to make a display. I also find myself whispering the Confiteor, when it is ommitted by the celebrant, and a few other prayers when at the OF....
Tolkien loudly voicing the resposes in Latin reminds me of a New Order Mass that I assisted at right on the cusp of my coming into traditionalism.
My wife and I assisted at a "healing" Mass with a friend who was very ill and the church/hall was very much filled up with that charismatic type that makes a Baptist revival meeting seem most pious.
When we came to the Confiteor, in the New Order with its wacky pack banality, I could not bear it any longer and began to recite it in Latin [Missal of '62].
That sure evoked some strange looks from people and some hissed remarks as well, including one,"Don't you know that this is a Catholic Church?"
My wife and I genuflected and left.
I've heard many less than enthusiastic responses from the laity who lived through this period-pious farm-stock people. The few positive responses I've heard sounded like they just parroted what Fr. Freewheeling told them they should think about the TLM and most (unless they've found the TLM and/or did some intelligent reading) of those who were born after the changes have no idea what the TLM is half the time.
I have no time for the accusation of "ivory tower elitism". Those who make such an accusation need to pull the blinders off and get a wider and higher perspective-not to mention do some reading/research. However, often times this accusation comes from people who would be considered members of the intelligentia. If so, then they are acting like pretentious class agitators.
Shawn: speaking of the archival process, do you think you will be able to scan and upload the pamphlets from traditional groups and writers from the 60s and 70s which you said a few weeks ago that you are collecting? I hope so.
I can honestly say that seeing this has made my day. Thank you Shawn, it is much appreciated. Please all pray for the repose of Tolkien's soul. Requiescat in pace. Amen.
Yes MBD, Tolkien was a lexicographer for the 1966 Jerusalem Bible. He helped in the translation of Baruch I think.
MBD & Patrick,
Tolkien, one of the greatest philologists of the twentieth century, was indeed consulted in the English translation of the Jerusalem Bible from the French and the original languages. He was quite modest about his role. He said he was consulted and translated the "small" book of Jonah. I will check which in letter he said this.
Although the Jerusalem Bible translation is held up as an example of "dynamic equivalence," do not reject it out of hand. As oral English it is excellent. I say that based on my experience as a lector while I was in Australia as well as from my private reading of the translation.
Imagine if people like Tolkien had been commissioned to translate the mass. What a difference it would have made!
One of the greatest sins of the reforms (as implemented) was the poor English translation. I predict that the Fourth Eucharistic prayer will be a revelation once it is rendered into English sensitive to the true text. It will also be a bridge to the East.
I'm sure he did the Book of Job...
As I have been recently reviewing the online articles of Mr. Charles Coulombe, I came across one the other day I had not read before, but which you should find interesting if you have not already seen it:
THE LORD OF THE RINGS--- A CATHOLIC VIEW
By Charles A. Coulombe
http://www.cheetah.net/
~ccoulomb...eintradcat.html
Tolkien's works are deeply Catholic in theme, though not allegorical in the manner of C.S. Lewis, and reflect an unapologetically Catholic worldview. It has become a yearly ritual for me to re-read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and I never get tired of either.
To delve into Tolkien’s writing is to find yourself bathed in a Catholic mindset. His “good people” inhabit a world where there is profound respect--no, more: reverence--for noble history and regal ancestry. One gets the distinct sensation that life in that world, with all its horrors and depravity, is not merely tolerable but even exuberant if lived in the bright shadow of the faithful and heroic ones who have gone before. This exuberance manifests itself in many ways, but one way is the preservation of inherited ritual down through the generations. In view of this, it is not in the least bit remarkable that Tolkien decried the loss of the traditional Mass. Even if there had been no abuses of the new rite, regrettable translations, etc., Tolkien’s type of man HAD to be pierced through the soul when the ancient rite vanished from his parish and from the life of his Church. No matter how poetic or ecumenical or inclusive of ancient elements it would be, the new rite was heart-breakingly that. New.
Tolkien may have no magisterium of his own and was an informed laymen, but his arguments sound and read like Klaus Gamber or Pius XII. Sitting 39 years with the carnage unleashed with empty Seminaries and pews one wonders whether more prudence and reflection on any change prior to its introduction would have shielded some of the faithful if not the clergy from the spirit of the age. Namely the innovations wrought on a weekly basis come from a text which screams improve me. The priest and the laity alike feel the need and fill in the void with turning the altar around and an "Andy and Judy" putting on a show attitude on the part of all involved. How else can one explain Liturgical dancers? but I digress. Examining the dissent from the innovations would help not only with informing everyone but may help with priestly formation as well. I grew up in this period. I recall all too often the attitude on the part of the faithful and the hiearchy that those attached to the EF were cranks and the simplistic formulas "old=bad and "new=good". By allowing the EF by papal mandate only now does one get to hear the valid arguments against what was done.
JPG
If any of you have not already done so, may I recommend that you read Secret Fire: The Spiritual Vision of J R R Tolkien, by Stratford Caldecott. It is a profound and enriching look at the theology and Catholic inspiration of Tolkien's works.
This is a most wonderful blog...you do great work...and I thank God for all of the contributors...being a Tolkien fan this post was really pleasing to me...
I have learned so much from this blog and just want you to know that you are all in my prayers...thank you, thank you, thank you! God bless you all!
Another excellent website, dealing with Tolkien's Catholicism:
http://tolkienandchristianity.bl...y.blogspot.com/
There seems to be some error. The site address should be:
http://tolkienand christianity.blogspot.com/
Ignore last e-mail. The address works fine.
I'm a fan of Tolkien myself; seeing his position on these matters is quite encouraging for us.
Jonathan,
Some of C.S. Lewis' works of fiction are not really 'allegorical'; take for example The Chronicles of Narnia, which presents a 'what if' scenario (what if the Son of God came into another world in another form?). Just nitpicking though. :D
For anyone tempted to cast their lot with those of our traditionalist brethren whose relationship with the See of Peter is, at best, "imperfect", the following passage from one of Tolkien's letters may be worth bearing in mind.
"'Trends' in the Church are . . . serious, especially to those accustomed to find in it a solace and a 'pax' in times of temporal trouble, and not just another arena of strife and change. [...] I know quite well that, to you as to me, the Church which once felt like a refuge, now often feels like a trap. There is nowhere else to go! (I wonder if this desperate feeling, the last state of loyalty hanging on, was not, even more often than is actually recorded in the Gospels, felt by Our Lord's followers in His earthly life-time?) I think there is nothing to do but to pray, for the Church, the Vicar of Christ, and for ourselves; and meanwhile to exercise the virtue of loyalty, which indeed only becomes a virtue when one is under pressure to desert it." ("The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien", no. 306, c. 1967)
There are some real gems of Catholic thought buried in the volume of his letters (ed. Humphrey Carpenter). This is one of them.
A good priest I knew said that more than one of them could serve as the basis for prime catechetical material. Hard to argue that point.
R.I.P., Prof. Tolkien.
In my opinion, one needs a Catholic worldview to fully appreciate Tolkien's legendarium. Take for instance the song of the Noldorin Elves at the beginning of Book I, you can see the inspiration for it can't you? I fully agree with your post Anne, very well written and perfectly encapsulates the nature of his work. I tried to articulate such thoughts myself, but couldn't. Very well done!
Snow-white, Snow-white, O Lady clear, O Queen beyond the Western Seas, O Light to us that wander here, amid the world of woven trees!
The most overt manifestation of Tolkien's Catholicism appears in the extraordinary unfinished story "The Deabte of Finrod and Andreth" published in one of his son Christopher's compilations. In the First Age, the Elf Finrod and mortal woman Andreth discuss the fallen state of Man and the intent of Iluvatar (God) that was thwarted by the fall-- and it is revealed that some among the Edain hope that Iluvatar Himself will somehow enter into Middle-Earth to heal it. Neither of them can imagine how that could happen ("can the painter enter the painting?") but Finrod foretells that is through Man, somehow, that it will occur. This reference to the Incarnation is subtle, but clear.
People like Tolkien were indeed asked to translate the Mass, at least initially. Anthony Boucher (writer, critic, editor) was helping with it, before he passed away.
But I doubt much of his work got into the final draft. :(
Patrick,
Tolkien translated Jonah. See Letter 294 in Humphrey Carpenter's edition of his letters.
Shawn,
There are two interesting points to note about letter 306 which your long quote comes from:
1) The passage you quote and the one Erick quotes appear to have been written in 1967. This was before the Ordinary Form was promulgated. One wonders what was being done in England at the time. We know there was experimentation and and that the Missal of 1965 were transitory. What was actual practice?
2) I suspect the passages published in letter 306 were only included because of the references to Gandalf and other things in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Carpenter was not that interested in Tolkien's interests in the liturgy. One wonders what might be mined in what remains unpublished from Tolkien's letters.
I am an avid reader of Tolkien's Legendarium, as well as the limited collection of published scholarly material. Some of his essays and translations.
I agree that whilst Tolkien is never directly allegorical, there is much that appears implicitly religious in tone. There are also excerpts that, divorced from the text, one might mistake as social commentary.
A passage that profoundly touched me is when the fellowship is passing through Laurelindórenan and they meet Haldir on the northern bounds. As they are led ever deeper into the Golden Wood, Gimli is made to wear a blind-fold. The company agrees to all go blindly, rather than unjustly single out Gimli, the dwarf.
Legolas cries, 'Alas for the folly of these days! ... Here all are enemies of the one Enemy, and yet I must walk blindly...'
Haldir responds cooly, 'Folly it may seem... Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him. Yet so little faith and trust do we find now in the world in the world beyond Lothlórien ... that we dare not by our trust endanger our land. We live now in an island amid many perils, and our hands are more often upon the bowstring than upon the harp.
(p. 348, 2004 reset edition, published by Harper Collins in one volume.)
If that is not a description of the Catholicism of the 1950s, then I'm not much of an exegete (which might verily be the case). Unfortunately in the post-conciliar period the bows were all burned in a tumultuous bonfire and we went exclusively harp, and by our trust the wood was invaded and its golden leaves fell into the turmoil of the present years.
As a Catholic whose reading of Tolkien was gloriously enriched upon his conversion, I would be thrilled to be involved in such a project. One need gain access to the papers. I wonder if his letters are kept by the estate or in the university archive (I cannot recall the college... M-something).
Mitchell, Tolkien was Professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College from 1945-1959.
Tolkien's papers are at Marquette University:
http://www.marquette.edu/library...es/
tolkien.html
His personal and academic papers, including letters, can be found at Oxford's Bodleian Library.
So Tolkien's letters are at Oxford!
Many of his letters to C.S.Lewis were destroyed after he read them. Lewis was apparently of the "uncluttered desk" persuasion. His brother kept his with a fraternal reverence.
Marquette has the Lord of the Rings Manuscripts and drafts, and those for the Hobbit and Farmer Giles. Following Sam Schmitt's link, we read: "The collection of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973), professor of Old and Middle English language and literature at Oxford University, 1925-1959, contains the original manuscripts and multiple working drafts for three of the author's most celebrated books, The Hobbit (1937), Farmer Giles of Ham (1949), and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), as well as the original copy of the children's book Mr. Bliss (published in facsimile form in 1982). The collection includes books by and about Tolkien, periodicals produced by Tolkien enthusiasts, audio and video recordings, and a host of published and unpublished materials relating to Tolkien's life and fantasy writings."
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