As I was contemplating what to call this website, I came across a quote from one of my favorite authors, the English fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien. Although his best-known work, “The Lord of the Rings”, is popular among both Christian and secular audiences, what is less well known is that Tolkien was himself a devout Christian…and a convert to the Catholic Church.
Although he was baptized into an Anglican family, Tolkien followed his mother in converting to the Catholic Church and received Holy Communion for the first time on Christmas Day, 1903. He was just shy of 12 years old.
In a letter to his son many years later, Tolkien described his conversion as follows:
I am one who came up out of Egypt, and pray God none of my seed shall return thither. I witnessed (half-comprehending) the heroic sufferings and early death in extreme poverty of my mother who brought me into the Church; and received the astonishing charity of Fr. Francis Morgan. But I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning– and by the mercy of God have never fallen out again…
J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter to Michael Tolkien, November 1, 1963
This quote resonated with me, as a fellow former “protestor” of the Catholic Church’s truth and authority. If you’ve ever been in fundamentalist Protestant circles (or in my case, “Torah Observant” circles), you have no doubt heard people refer to the Catholic Church as “Babylon” or “Egypt”. People who leave the Catholic Church or even mainstream Christianity are likened to the Israelites following God out of a pagan land where they were held in bondage.
This is such a popular idea that there are even books written on this premise. “The Two Babylons” by Alexander Hislop, “Come Out of Her My People” by C.J. Koster, and “Out of Egypt” by Chuck Crismier are just a few of them.
Tolkien, on the other hand, flips that idea on its head. From his perspective, it is not the Catholic Church, but the confusing wilderness of Protestantism that is symbolically Egypt. His conversion to Catholicism was when he “came up out of Egypt” into the promised land of Truth.
That thought perfectly encapsulates what this blog is about. My goal is to demonstrate, to anyone who will listen, that Torah Observance is not and will never be the truth. It is only in turning to the faith of the ancient Christians that one finds the fulfilled Torah, the true Manna of the Eucharist, and the final Paschal sacrifice of Jesus Christ that bought salvation for us all.
It is my prayer that you too will fall deeply in love with the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, and like Tolkien, “[come] up out of Egypt”.
May God Bless You!
