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Lent, day 3
Mar. 8th, 2014 04:56 pmI thought today I'd share something from JRR Tolkien's personal life.
54 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien 8 January 1944
Remember your guardian angel. Not a plump lady with swan-wings! But – at least this is my notion and feeling – : as souls with free-will we are, as it were, so placed as to face (or to be able to face) God. But God is (so to speak) also behind us, supporting, nourishing us (as being creatures). The bright point of power where that life-line, that spiritual umbilical cord touches: there is our Angel, facing two ways to God behind us in the direction we cannot see, and to us. But of course do not grow weary of facing God, in your free right and strength (both provided 'from behind' as I say). If you cannot achieve inward peace, and it is given to few to do so (least of all to me) in tribulation, do not forget that the aspiration for it is not a vanity, but a concrete act. I am sorry to talk like this, and so haltingly. But I can do no more for you dearest. ....
If you don't do so already, make a habit of the 'praises'. I use them much (in Latin): the Gloria Patri, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Laudate Dominum; the Laudate Pueri Dominum (of which I am specially fond), one of the Sunday psalms; and the Magnificat; also the Litany of Loretto (with the prayer Sub tuum praesidium). If you have these by heart you never need for words of joy. It is also a good and admirable thing to know by heart the Canon of the Mass, for you can say this in your heart if ever hard circumstance keeps you from hearing Mass. So endeth Faeder lár his suna.1 With very much love.
Longað þonnet þy lǽs þe him con léoþa worn,
oþþe mid hondum con hearpan grétan;
hafaþ him his glíwes giefe,
þe him God sealde.
From the Exeter Book. Less doth yearning trouble him who knoweth many songs, or with his hands can touch the harp: his possession is his gift of 'glee' (= music and/or verse) which God gave him. How these old words smite one out of the dark antiquity! 'Longað'! All down the ages men (of our kind, most awarely) have felt it: not necessarily caused by sorrow, or the hard world, but sharpened.
Such a loving letter to a son soon off to war, and filled with advice, yet still containing meat for the mind as well as the heart!
54 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien 8 January 1944
Remember your guardian angel. Not a plump lady with swan-wings! But – at least this is my notion and feeling – : as souls with free-will we are, as it were, so placed as to face (or to be able to face) God. But God is (so to speak) also behind us, supporting, nourishing us (as being creatures). The bright point of power where that life-line, that spiritual umbilical cord touches: there is our Angel, facing two ways to God behind us in the direction we cannot see, and to us. But of course do not grow weary of facing God, in your free right and strength (both provided 'from behind' as I say). If you cannot achieve inward peace, and it is given to few to do so (least of all to me) in tribulation, do not forget that the aspiration for it is not a vanity, but a concrete act. I am sorry to talk like this, and so haltingly. But I can do no more for you dearest. ....
If you don't do so already, make a habit of the 'praises'. I use them much (in Latin): the Gloria Patri, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Laudate Dominum; the Laudate Pueri Dominum (of which I am specially fond), one of the Sunday psalms; and the Magnificat; also the Litany of Loretto (with the prayer Sub tuum praesidium). If you have these by heart you never need for words of joy. It is also a good and admirable thing to know by heart the Canon of the Mass, for you can say this in your heart if ever hard circumstance keeps you from hearing Mass. So endeth Faeder lár his suna.1 With very much love.
Longað þonnet þy lǽs þe him con léoþa worn,
oþþe mid hondum con hearpan grétan;
hafaþ him his glíwes giefe,
þe him God sealde.
From the Exeter Book. Less doth yearning trouble him who knoweth many songs, or with his hands can touch the harp: his possession is his gift of 'glee' (= music and/or verse) which God gave him. How these old words smite one out of the dark antiquity! 'Longað'! All down the ages men (of our kind, most awarely) have felt it: not necessarily caused by sorrow, or the hard world, but sharpened.
Such a loving letter to a son soon off to war, and filled with advice, yet still containing meat for the mind as well as the heart!
