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From the Associate:
Tolkein, Scandal, and the Eucharist
J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the popular trilogy The Lord of the Rings, was a devout Catholic. At one point he wrote to his son Michael, who was experiencing weakening faith, and was pointing to difficulties and scandal in the Church as part of his problem in believing. Tolkien, then seventy-two years old, wrote to encourage him with some words on the Eucharist. Here are a few excerpts from that wise and still timely letter of a father to his son.
"You speak of 'sagging' faith. In the last resort faith is an act of the will, inspired by love. Our love may be chilled and our will eroded by the spectacle of the shortcomings, folly, and even sins of the Church and its ministers, but I do not think that one who has once had faith goes back over the line for these reasons (least of all anyone with any historical knowledge). . . The temptation to 'unbelief' (which really means rejection of Our Lord and His claims) is always there within us. Part of us longs to find an excuse for it outside us. The stronger the inner temptation the more readily shall we be 'scandalized' by others. I think I am as sensitive as you (or any other Christian) to the 'scandals,' both of clergy and laity. I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, even bad priests; but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for me would mean leaving the allegiance of Our Lord) for any such reasons: I should leave because I did not believe. I should deny the Blessed Sacrament, that is call Our Lord a fraud to His face.
"If He is a fraud and the Gospels fraudulent - that is, garbled accounts of a demented megalomaniac (which is the only alternative), then of course the spectacle exhibited by the Church in history and today is simply evidence of a gigantic fraud. If not, however, then this spectacle is alas! only what was to be expected: it began before the first Easter, and does not affect faith at all - except that we may and should be deeply grieved. But we should grieve on our Lord's behalf and for Him, associating ourselves with the scandalizers not with the saints, not crying out that we cannot 'take' Judas Iscariot, or even the absurd and cowardly Simon Peter, or the silly women like James' mother, trying to push her sons.
"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. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.
"I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and re-arising. But for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honour, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place. 'Feed my sheep' was
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