“We are firm believers in the clear-cut happy ending. Winter without spring is unthinkable. But what do we do when it comes? Suffering without foreseeable relief is very real when a spouse dies, when a teenage son or daughter gets into serious trouble, when a boss or coworker is intolerable. Once in a while, we crash straight into the wall, and fail decisively. Where do the happy ending and our picture of ourselves go then?
“The life and literary work of J. R. R. Tolkien . . . can offer a helpful example of how to deal with such facts of life. He lost his father at four in South Africa, his mother at twelve in England, and most of his friends at twenty-four at the Battle of the Somme in France. Death, betrayal, and human limitation are everywhere in his works. Good eventually wins the big battles, but even at those great victories, there is loss: many good men, elves, dwarves, and hobbits don’t return home, and nothing can get them back as they were. Even when Frodo arrives home, he can’t stay: he has been too scarred and has to direct his hope beyond Middle Earth.”
In a recent commentary based on the works of Tolkien, Brother Edmund McCullough, O.P., reflected on how only the virtue of hope, given by God, can enable us to see to the far side of the sorrows.
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