Today I would lobby hard that the church recognize a 20th Century storyteller who found a way into our imaginations through small characters with big hearts: Saint John Ronald Rueul (but you can call him J.R.R.) Tolkien, Weaver of Tales and Patron Saint of Adventurers.

Saint J.R.R. was born at the tail-end of the 19th Century to British parents in the Orange Free State in the Republic of South Africa. When he was just three years old he, his brother, and his mother journied back to Britain, with his father intending to join later…but his father fell ill with fever and died in South Africa.

Having no income, the family bounced around Britain, often staying with family. He was taught in the home with his brother, and he was especially fond of learning about botany and languages. He knew Latin before many of his contemporaries knew English.

Saint Tolkien could read by the age of four, and loved fantasy books. His until-then Protestant mother decided to join the Roman Catholic church, despite objections from her extended family, and though it cost them their financial support (J.R.R.’s relatives refused to support a Catholic) Tolkien was raised in the stories of the Roman Catholic faith. In fact, when his mother died of diabetes at the young age of 34, she had left her sons in the care of Father Xavier Morgan, a local parish priest.

As an early teen Saint Tolkien started experimenting with language. He and his cousins would invent nonsense languages that, while fictional, followed rules and orders just like any other language (except, of course, English…because English has few rules and just a whiff of order). This play with languages would eventually serve him well as he constructed Elvish, Entish, and a variety of other fantastical languages from fanciful friends (and foes).

In these teen years he would have many adventures, hiking through mountains and taking long tangential trails, traversing hither and yon. Another way to say it: he practiced his Hobbitus long before Hobbits existed.

It was also in these teen years where he fell in love with a young Protestant, Edith Mary Bratt. Fr. Morgan forbid St. Tolkien from fraternizing with this non-Catholic (he was very disappointed) until he was 21. This probably ensured that Saint J.R.R. finished college because young Edith had a way of making him forget about his studies…

When he turned 21 Saint J.R.R. wrote to Edith, and soon after they were engaged and she agreed to convert to Catholicism (infuriating her family). Shortly after Saint Tolkien followed his countrymen to war, fighting on the front lines and surviving the first German gas attacks ever recorded. In the trenches, on the front lines, his unit in particular was plagued by disease, danger, and hardship. Tolkien developed a fever from the rampant lice infestations of the time, and was taken back to Britain, small and frail.

Many of his friends were killed in the war. It is no mistake that the great battles Tolkien would think up reflected so many real battles…Tolkien lived Middle Earth’s wars.

After the war Saint J.R.R. went to work for The Oxford Dictionary, and began tutoring students at nearby universities. This led to him joining the facult of Leeds where he continued to write, and eventually scored a fellowship at Pembroke College where he wrote The Hobbit and the first two books of The Lord of the Rings.

After penning a translation of Beowulf, Saint Tolkien had solidified his place as a master with story and languages. In fact, when the second World War broke out (because we just can’t learn our lesson, can we?) they courted Saint J.R.R. as a codebreaker, though he never was used in that capacity.

In 1945 he took a professorship at Merton College, Oxford, where he completed his trilogy and stayed until his retirement in 1958.

It’s well known that Saint Tolkien and Saint Lewis shared a pint or two weekly, both discussing their works of fiction. It is often noted that Tolkien’s faith was part of the influence that drew Saint Lewis from staunch athiesm back into the believing fold.

Honestly, I wish Saint J.R.R. had adopted some of Saint Lewis’s brevity, and Saint Lewis some of Tolkien’s character development. Lewis was always too “on the nose” with his Christological stereotypes for my taste…

Saint J.R.R. becamse quite famous and, though he didn’t like fame, he also didn’t shy away from the influence in the world it gave him. He recieved numerous honors late in life, and was even nominated for the Nobel by his pint companion, Lewis, in 1961.

Edith and J.R.R. had four children, and Saint Tolkien was a devoted father, often sending elaborate notes and drawings to his children, especially at Christmastide. Edith died in 1971 at the age of 82. Upon her death J.R.R. returned to Oxford to live out his days. He would die 21 months later on September 2nd, 1973.

Because the church doesn’t have a notable saint on this day, and already has September 2 taken, I would lobby to transpose his commemoration to this day.

Before his death he had “Luthien” engraved on Edith’s tombstone, a nod to the daughter of the elf-king. He was buried in the same grave, and instructed that “Beren” be added to his name…the name of the mortal lover of Luthien in his great trilogy.

His stories live on not just in popular media, but more importantly in the real lives of those who the world sees as small in stature (literally or otherwise), but with outsized souls who strive mightily to do what is right in a world that conspires against justice in deference for power and destructive practices of the power-hungry.

In a world of Mordors, create the Shire.

Or, better yet, be a Samwise. Samwise is the true hero of the triology.

Saint J.R.R. is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church (everyone?) that a good fiction says more truth than a boring reality. We can transcend all of this mess in the world right now and eek out a hero’s tale in the end, Beloved.

It’s been done before.

-historical bits from public resources

-icon written by Br. Robert Lentz, and can be purchased at Trinitystores.com