Lady Day & the One Ring

A nasty cold retired me from my day job and any productive blogging this past week, but it did give me ample time to resume my reading of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which I last read in 2003 while Peter Jackson's "adaptations" were in theaters. This rereading has yielded many interesting reflections lost on the thirteen year old version of myself, particularly the religious components. It would be a danger to read Lord of the Rings as a direct Christian allegory, for it is not, but it does have broad Catholic themes, a strict outlook of good and evil, and the construction of the world, through revisions, seems to mirror the composition of our world (angelic elves, demonic orcs, Sauron as Satan, men running from their fate while capable of good and evil). One minor detail which stunned me came in chapter IV of Return of the Ring, "The Field of Cormallen." You see, Tolkien writes this little passage:

'The fourteenth of the New year,' said Gandalf; 'of if you like, the eighth day of April in the Shire reckoning. But in Gondor the New Year will always now begin upon the twenty fifth of March when Sauron fell, and when you were brought out of the fire to the King....'

The wizard, Gandalf, refers to the date of the destruction of the One Ring, the tool by which the invisible antagonist tempts men to turn against their innate knowledge of right and wrong and to do his bidding until their own countenances are vanished. The Ring, whether conceived as such or not, is a clear analogue for the "stain of Original Sin" (cf. Vatican I) that infects men who do not live in the life of grace. Tolkien picked for its destruction Lady Day, when after centuries of prophets and kings dragging their feet to do some, but never all of God's will, a poor Jewish maiden in Nazareth gave the angel Gabriel an unequivocal "Yes" and conceived the God-Man of the Holy Spirit. Unlike C.S. Lewis, Tolkien seems too restrained to make a perfect Christological equivalent in his classic work, yet the obedience of Mary and the sin-vanquishing presence of Christ are made present by Aragorn's acceptance of his own destiny, in contrast with his vacant ancestors, and Frodo's destruction of the Ring, albeit with the help of the creature Gollum (Frodo cannot be perfect like Christ, so evil must play a part in its own destruction).

There is also the curious dating of the same to April 8th in "Shire reckoning." With no proof from the author's own records and no specialized knowledge of Tolkien aside from having read a few books, I gander that he is testing competing views of man's happiness. The Shire, isolated from the troubles of Middle Earth and also its progress, is a place of natural contentment where people carry on their lives in a traditional manner (tradere, passing on what was received) and are fortified by their living within the confines of their realm. According to a footnote the Shire calendar has one thirty days, not thirty-one; for April 8th to coincide with March 25th the two would have to be thirteen days apart, the variance of the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Apart from the blissfully ignorant Shire, Gondor is in the heart of Middle Earth, the capital of men and right next to the citadel of evil. Aggression has less to do with its decay than its absent kings and lost purpose, all of which are put right by Aragorn's ascent to the throne after Frodo's deed. Gondor becomes what it was always meant to be, like mankind in the Saints after the Incarnation. By the end of the story Gondor is fulfilled, but the bucolic Shire has not been saved from the ravages of reality by its remoteness.

As happy and preferable as hiding from the machines of our day may be, it will not save either our world, our Church, or our souls. We must controvert our day if we are to enter our own heavenly city and join the ranks of men who were changed after the Annunciation and were restored from ancestral guilt to ancestral innocence.

Good Friday & the Annunciation

The day began with traditional Vespers. The antiphons during the psalms alternated between the Annunciation and Holy Friday. After the Joyful Light hymn the readings again merged the two days.

The Gospel merged both the Annunciation lesson and the Passion into one. In accordance with Byzantine practice the melded text was only attributed to the first one read, in this case St. Luke.

Following the Gospel the rite turned into the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, beginning with the Litany of Fervent supplication. After Communion Great and Holy Friday services resumed and, as is the Slavic tradition, a funerary procession circled the church thrice before Christ was buried in the tomb, akin to the medieval Latin sepulcher. In the Greek and Arabic customary, the icon of Christ would have been deposed from a crucifix and laid in the epitaphios.

The priest mentions both the Annunciation and the Crucifixion in the blessing at the dismissal. After the Divine Liturgy the faithful "creep" to the tomb and prostrate before adoring the buried Savior.

Hail O Virgin and Bride Ever Pure

"The Almighty and merciful God, Whose nature is goodness, Whose will is power, and Whose work is mercy, did, at the very beginning of the world, as soon as the devil's hatred had mortally poisoned us with the venom of his envy, foretell those remedies which His mercy had foreordained for our healing. He bade the serpent know that there was to be a Seed of the woman Who should yet bruise the swelling of his pestilential head; this Seed was none other than the Christ to come in the flesh, that God and Man in one Person, Who, being born of a Virgin, should, by His undefiled birth, damn the seducer of man." Pope St. Leo the Great, 2nd Christmas Sermon

Marian Lent II

Here are today's chants for the Akathist to the Mother of God, the hymn sung in Byzantine parishes on Fridays of Lent to celebrate the Annunciation.

A Marian Lent

The Byzantine tradition dedicates the first four Fridays of Great Lent to anticipating the Annunciation of the Nativity of Christ to the Mother of God, Mary. On Friday evenings at Compline Byzantine churches will sing an Akathist, a "hymn" consisting of opening rites, psalm 50, a few canons, the incensation of an icon of the Blessed Mother, and finally a series of chants which vary by week. This Friday, the first of Lent, we will sing the chants below. They are some of the most profound and beautiful liturgical texts I have ever seen and should help us peer into what the liturgy should be. The chants here are taken from a Melkite service book I borrowed from my previous pastor. Unfortunately I could not find any non-choral settings of the Akathist to publish here, but you can make up your own chant if you wish to sing these (someone made it up once, right?).