Food for the Journey

Fordham University Church. 2010. I’m a first-year PhD student in Philosophy, and attending some of my first Catholic Masses. As a wayward Evangelical, stumbling my way back into Christianity, the Mass strikes me as ancient. And ornate. And formal.

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And strangely...familiar. I have, like many raised in the Evangelical tradition, internalized Sacred Scripture from a young age. And so I recognize the parts of the Mass for their Biblical significance and scriptural context. I’m captivated as the assembled congregation kneels, and the priest, elevating the consecrated host, proclaims: “Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” St. John the Baptist, proclaiming Christ to the world. And now, a priest in the Bronx, elevating Christ before a kneeling congregation, echoing the Baptist. Bringing Christ--body and blood, soul and divinity--into New York. Into my world. I’m converted on the spot. Transfixed by the elevated host, my heart echoes the proclamation of St. Thomas: “My Lord and my God.”

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Transfixed by the elevated host, my heart echoes the proclamation of St. Thomas: “My Lord and my God.”

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I’m now a Catholic, having entered the Church at the 2012 Easter Vigil. Like many Catholics, I’m also a loyal fan of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I saw the movies first--Peter Jackson’s original trilogy was released during my formative high school years. Since then, and since becoming Catholic, I have returned to movies, yes, but also discovered the books. And realized how much Tolkien must have prepared me for my entry into the Church. How much his books must have pre-evangelized me.

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Tolkien notoriously loathed direct allegory. So it would be misleadingly reductive to describe any part of the Lord of the Rings as a Christian or Catholic allegory. No Aslan to be found in Middle Earth. Yet Tolkien also described the Lord of the Rings as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” I’m eternally grateful for Tolkien’s conscious and unconscious labors. Frodo, Gandolf, Aragorn: teaching me about Christ’s role as priest, prophet, and king. Galadriel, Arwyn, Eowyn: introducing me to and teaching me to love our Blessed Mother. Gollum, Boromir, Suaron: warning me against the dangers of sin and the reality of evil.

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And throughout the novels: lembas. The bread of the elves. In Tolkien’s complex etymology, ‘lembas’ means “journey bread,” or, under a different name, “life-bread.” One bite of lembas bread, according to Legolas the elf, “is enough to fill the stomach of a grown man.” The bread sustains members of the fellowship of the ring on their journey. It is the near-exclusive source of food for the hobbits Frodo and Sam as they navigate deep into the heart of Mordor. Daunted by their task to rid themselves of the ring. Worn by the relentless march to Mount Doom, lembas sustains them. The bread even tastes sweet. Like the manna eaten by the Israelites in the wilderness, “the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). Gollum, perverted by evil, finds lembas revolting.

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Tolkien may have rejected allegory, but in writing about lembas, he flirts with it. For me, there is no better image of the Eucharist in the life of a Catholic. Food for the journey. Sustenance as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. A sure bulwark against evil. Like manna, a sweet gift from God from in the wilderness. Journey bread. Life bread.

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As I have journeyed as a Catholic, I have journeyed with Tolkien. And with Tolkien, more closely with Christ in the Eucharist. What brought me into the Church will also sustain me. The Eucharist, source and summit of our faith, and sustenance for our journeys.

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As I have journeyed as a Catholic, I have journeyed with Tolkien. And with Tolkien, more closely with Christ in the Eucharist.

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In the Gospel of St. John, after the Bread of Life discourse, the disciples respond in the way many of us respond to the gift Christ offers in the Eucharist: “this is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” Our Lord’s reply? “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” And then, after many “drew back and no longer went about with him,” he asks the Twelve--and asks us--“Do you also wish to go away?” May we respond in the manner of St. Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”