Lessons from Under Satan's Sun

"His laughter!  That's the weapon of the prince of this world.  He hides away, as he lies, takes on every kind of face, even our own...He never waits, never stays in one place.  He's in the eyes that defy him, the mouth that denies him.  He's in the anguish of the mystic, and the serenity and self-assurance of the fool.  The Prince of this World!  The Prince of this World!"

Georges Bernanos is perhaps best known for his famous work, Diary of a Country Priest.  (Another famous work that, alas, I have yet to read!)  Before that, however, came an earlier book entitled Under Satan's Sun.  

It's a hard book to come by, at least in English.  It's out of print and a used copy online goes for roughly $80 or so.  (The devil clearly doesn't want this book being read...)  However, my local librarian was able to make some calls and obtained a copy for me from Fordham!

Bernanos wrote this book shortly after he returned home from the First World War.  As one might imagine, his experiences in the trenches greatly affected him.  The war made the author directly confront the mystery of evil.  How could one explain such carnage and destruction?  The politicians, economists, and sociologists offered rationals, all of which fell short.  

No, there was something else at play.  

During an interview, Bernanons once stated, "I have seen the devil, as I see you, since my childhood."

In many ways, perhaps without even realizing it, we have all seen the devil since childhood.  

~~~~~

Under Satan's Sun opens with the story of Mouchette, a young, restless girl looking for freedom from monotony: she seeks adventure, risk, and--above all--singularity.  She has an affair with an older man, becoming pregnant, and subsequently goes to visit her lover one evening.  

"Although she would have been at a loss to explain the strange pleasure she felt or to give a name to the mounting tide of confused feelings in her fearless heart, all she wanted at that moment was to humiliate her lover in his poverty and to have him at her mercy...So complete was her disappointment, so quick and decisive her scorn, that the events that were to follow seemed in fact to be already engraved in her heart.  We talk of chance, but the face of chance looks very much like our own."

Mouchette, a volatile personality to begin with, becomes enveloped in a kind a frenzy or mania and the night ends with her shooting her lover dead, at point-blank.  The viciousness within her remains as she soon captures a second lover, who is easy prey to her willfulness and capriciousness. 

As Mouchette's story unfolds, one begins to detect a deeper presence within her, driving her actions and dispelling any reason.  Her life is a tragedy--a story written by the vileness that lived within her.

There are those who seem to be made for a peaceful life, but a tragic destiny awaits them.  We are amazed by the strangeness and unpredictability of fate.  Yet facts are unimportant, for the tragedy was already there in their hearts.

~~~~~

Bernanos then shifts the story to his protagonist, Father Donissan.  The priest is described as a rather tall, clumsy fellow with notably 

large feet and a perpetually unkept, soiled cassock.  He would certainly make an impression upon a first meeting--this not due to any impressive vocabulary, demonstration of depth of knowledge, or polished social skills...but lack thereof.

Indeed, there was nothing impressive about Fr. Donissan that met the eye.  But within--in his soul--there was something entirely singular.  What set Fr. Donissan apart was his vocation in life.  He had determined, in the guileless and innocence of his soul, to offer his life--all consolations from God and even his own salvation--for the sake of poor sinners.  His name suits him well.  Donissan literally means "to give one's blood."  He is truly an alter Christus, another Christ, who offers himself for sinners.

It was a sacrifice offered with a great price: Fr. Donissan places himself in a lifelong battle with Satan.  The former seeks to save souls; the latter, to damn them.

"The concrete sign of an uneasiness that so far had been vague and undefined was almost as frightening as a real and visible presence, of which he now had no more than a sense, a sharp but indescribable feeling.  He was no longer alone, but who was with him?...Ah, how strong and cunning this Other is, how patient when necessary, and as swift as lightning when his time has come!...As the enemy approached, he felt hatred, not fear.  He was born to fight, and at every turn in the road ahead, there was to be blood." 

Bernanos modeled his saint, Fr. Donissan, after St. John Vianney.  Like the Cure of Ars, Fr. Donissan realizes that Satan aims his most vicious attack at those striving most ardently toward God.

"...tiny souls, tiny mouths--this is not for you...the Satan of your strange litanies is nothing but your own distorted image, for he who worships the carnal world is Satan unto himself.  The monster watches you and laughs but has not yet speared you on his claws...But he is to be found in the personal prayer of the solitary, in his fasting and penitence, in the depths of the most profound ecstasy, and in the silence of the heart...His hatred is reserved for the saints."

Sometimes Satan's attack is even physical.

One of the most captivating scenes of the book occurs when Fr. Donissan is en route to a nearby retreat, where he is awaited to hear confessions.  While on the back country roads, however, the priest finds himself inexplicably lost.  He tries to retrace his steps and begin again.  He knows that his destination is simply over the next hill, yet no matter how directly he walks or how quickly he moves, he repeatedly finds himself further and further from his end goal.

"Then, once he had crossed a final ditch, he was on a very narrow, scarcely distinguishable dirt track in the middle of a plowed field that he remembered taking an hour or two earlier.  But then, he thought, he had been alone.  For some time now in fact--why not admit it?--he had not been alone.  Someone was walking beside him.  It looked like a very lively short man, first on his right, then on his left, sometimes in front of him and sometimes behind, hard to make out in the dark, trotting along at first without a word.  Perhaps they could help each other on such a dark night?"

Fr. Donissan finds himself walking with Satan.  And Bernanos captures the scene brilliantly.  Satan appears as an ordinary man--a horse-handler, to be exact.  Too often, I think, we associate Satan with powerful, dramatic scenes of terror.  Consider the movie The Exorcist.  Certainly, Satan sometimes chooses to manifest himself in such extraordinary, frightening ways.

But I think even more frightening is the more common experience of Satan--precisely because it is so undramatic.  A thought, consideration, a subtle insinuation.  How often has Satan been walking alongside us...and we didn't see him?  In my life, I can clearly pinpoint a time when Satan was overtly tempting and attacking me interiorly.  Yet, I find more alarming the myriad of other occasions when Satan was on the offensive and I was unaware...perhaps even an unknowing accomplice.  

Under Satan's Sun was a complex, complicated book, one that I could probably read several times and still not fully understand all the layers of meaning.  It's only fitting, though, since the struggle with evil is itself complicated and complex.  The battle lines of interior warfare are not clearly drawn.  What happens on the interior is shadowed, even from ourselves at times.  Where do I end and the devil's evil influence begin?  Is that particular thought my own, or has the Evil One presented it to me?  Sometimes the devil--the father of lies--even masquerades as an angel of light: there are moments when Fr. Donissan acts, thinking he is being prompted by God, only later to realize he was answering the beckoning of Satan.

"Be careful, Sabiroux, to remember that the world isn't a piece of well-constructed clockwork.  God throws us between Himself and Satan as if we were the last rampart.  It's through us that for centuries and centuries the same hatred has been trying to reach Him, through our poor human flesh that the ineffable murder is consummated.  No matter to what heights prayer and love may raise us, we carry the dreadful companion with us, girded to our loins and bursting his sides with huge peals of laughter." 

~~~~~

In his quest to save souls, God bestows upon Fr. Donissan a great gift, which also becomes a very heavy cross for the priest: the ability to see into the interior of a soul.

Fr. Donnisan awakes from his physical encounter with the devil to the kind, concerned questioning of a local quarryman.  As the man leads Fr. Donnisan to town, the priest first realizes the power God has given to him.    

"The quarryman was still walking on calmly ahead of him...The soul that was opened up to him filled him with respect and love.  It was a simple soul without history, attentive, ordinary, and filled with very ordinary cares, but a royal humility bathed the man in its reflected glory, like a heavenly light.  What a lesson it was for the poor tormented priest haunted by his own fears to discover the mute, inglorious villager unknown to himself and others, bearing the burden of his destiny and his life's humble loves beneath God's gaze!  A thought came to him, unbidden, adding an element of fear to the respect and love: perhaps it was from that simple man alone that the Other had taken flight?"

In sharp contrast to the pious quarryman, Fr. Donnisan is led onward and, as the dawn slowly breaks, he happens upon Mouchette, who is lurking in the morning shadows, awaiting her lover.  

To many, it is the central scene of the novel.  Donissan does not offer Mouchette reformation, but redemption.  As Michael Tobin explains in his book Georges Bernanos: The Theological Source of His Art, Mouchette must be "bought back from her sins."  Bernanos wrote of this scene, "Thus Fr. Donissan did not appear by chance: Mouchette's wild cry of despair called him, made him indispensable."

As they converse, Fr. Donissan tells Mouchette:

"We can never judge ourselves properly, and we often keep up the illusion of certain failings so as not to see the things in us that are really rotten and need to be cast out if we are to live."

It was a sentence that particularly struck me.  If someone were to ask me, "What is your greatest fault?," I would have an answer...but very likely not the correct one.  When we walk under Satan's sun, we are blinded to the truth--even the truth about ourselves.  

~~~~~~~~~

Fr. Donissan's life is one of severe struggle.  He passionately empties himself out in his priestly ministry, spending hours in the damp, dusky confessional where his interior sight allows him to bestow peace and healing upon the souls come to him for absolution.  It is a peace he never experiences himself in his constant warfare with the demonic.  

Bernanos wanted to create this kind of saint, a saint in stark contrast to the kind of bourgeoise piety he witnessed around him.  The author sought the shock value that comes from a saintly protagonist who almost fledges himself to death in an extreme effort to banish what is considered an undeserved joy.  I still ponder that scene in my mind, uncertain as to its meaning.  Was Fr. Donissan's self-flagellation a response to the devil, or an effect of the devil?  

A few points were, however, strikingly clear.  The first is the incessant attack of the devil upon all of us (but most especially upon those sincerely striving to live a virtuous life).  We must recommit ourselves to pray especially for our priests, for whom the devil especially harbors deep hatred.  In Under Satan's Sun, Bernanos has the devil refer to priests as "stupid little tabernacles of Jesus Christ."  They are alter Christus and they need our prayers.

Bernanos, in the character of Fr. Donnisan, gives the image of the spiritual soldier--incessantly attacked, sometimes wounded, but carrying the weapon that, through God's grace, will lead to victory.

"For the first time the saint of Lumbres heard, saw, and touched the being that was to be his shameful companion for the rest of his harsh life...tense with horror, his eyes closed as if to concentrate his strength within him, striving to avoid any pointless exertion, with his will drawn out like a sword from a scabbard, strove to go beyond his anguish." 

Lessons from Lord of the World

"There was the Catholic Faith, more certain to him than the existence of himself; it was true and alive.  He might be damned, but God reigned.  He might go mad, but Jesus Christ was Incarnate Deity, proving Himself so by death and Resurrection, and John his Vicar.  These things were as the bones of the Universe--facts beyond doubting--if they were not true, nothing anywhere was anything but a dream."

I was in 12th grade English class and we were discussing the subjective meaning of words.  

"Why is it," my teacher posed, "that that chair over there is called 'chair?'  Why don't we call it a 'ball?'"

After a number of questioning stares, he continued on.  "Perhaps what we understand of as 'chair' doesn't even exist.  This idea we have--it's just that, an idea.  Maybe this piece of metal in front of me, which we use to sit on, should be called something else.  Maybe there is no such thing as a 'chair.'"

And so went on the rest of that class.  The takeaway lesson: meaning is unstable.  

It was my first introduction to deconstructionism.  

I vividly remember a classmate yelling out exasperatedly, as the bell rang, "So is anything true?!"

Our reading that year included Derrida, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Vonnegut.

As all of reality seemed to be called into question, I found myself remembering more and more that inquiry of Pilate's: "What is truth?"  And while the class's probing into meaning caused a kind of existentialistic crisis for some students, if anything, I found it oddly reassuring.  To me, it was all quite simple.  Truth isn't a "what," it is a "Who."  

We had a large, end-of-the-year paper due, on a topic of our choice.  I decided to write mine on the subject of physical objects versus words: which is more real, more true?  My conclusion: both are true because truth lies in the one who is Truth, who is the Word made Flesh.

I went to a public high school and, in many ways, I think it did more for my faith than if I had attended a Catholic school.  Faith became something internalized to me then, a self-identification when there was so much contrary to the Faith in the ideas, words, and actions around me.  

I never had any idea what a treasure I had been given.  I have a bit more of an inclination now, but still not enough.

That next year, when I was a freshman in college, I began dating a man who was an agnostic, soon-to-become atheist.  He had so many questions for me about about the Faith.  My answers weren't sufficient for him--in part because, while I believed, I couldn't defend.  Faith is based on reason, and I didn't know how to explain the reasonableness of it all.  

But my answers were also insufficient because, while he was certainly intelligent enough, he lacked faith.  It would have helped my discussions with him if I had possessed a PhD in theology, no doubt about that.  Yet, all the degrees and knowledge in the world can never fill the place of faith.

"Well, they say there is a thing called Faith--a kind of deep conviction unlike anything else--supernatural--which God is supposed to give to people who desire it--to people who pray for it, and lead good lives, and so on...Well, this Faith, acting upon what they call Evidence--this Faith makes one absolutely certain that there is a God, that He was made man and so on, with the Church and all the rest of it..." 

Fr. Robert Hugh Benson wrote Lord of the World in 1907.  The futuristic novel is set in what is now our past--it takes place around the year 2000.  Many call the novel prophetic, as Benson describes with an eery realism many facets of contemporary culture, from technological advances (modern highways, weapons of mass destruction, airplanes--or "volors") to the Culture of Death (there are places called "Homes of Rest" where people can be euthanized).  

Benson also foresaw the crisis in faith that we observe today.  Many leave the Church for the new religion: Humanitarianism.  Their creed is, "Man is God."  This religion says that the supernatural doesn't exist and worldly peace, without any division in the brotherhood of man, is the ultimate purpose.

"...the primary lesson of the gospel [was] that there was no God but man, no priest but the politician, no prophet but the schoolmaster."

"There is no Faith, as we used to call it: it is the vision of Facts that no one can doubt..."

Catholicism shifts from being a minority religion to a persecuted religion.  All are obligated to attend the new public worship on the Feast of Paternity and those who refuse will be jailed.  And, when an attack on the part of some Catholics is uncovered, the government seeks to totally obliterate Catholicism.

Fr. Percy Franklin finds himself at the heart of the struggle as Julian Felsenburgh, a politician whose eloquent, captivating speeches have enamored the whole word, comes to power.  It is, in fact, not just any struggle, but the ultimate struggle: Felsenburgh is the Anti-Christ and the end is near.

Antichrist and the Devil, Signorelli

All the world is poised against God and His Church.  The logical, reasoned arguments, the allure power and glory, the promise of peace and prosperity: these all seem to lie with Felsenburgh.  Meanwhile, the Church, for all intents and purposes, seems to be falling into shambles as St. Peter's itself is completely decimated...

"Here, then, was the other formulated answer to the problem of life.  The two Cities of Augustine lay for him to choose. The one was that of a world self-originated, self-organized and self-sufficient, interpreted by such men as Marx and Herve, socialists, materialists, and in the end, hedonists, summed up at last in Felsenburgh.  The other lay displayed in the sight he saw before him, telling of a Creator and of a creation, of a Divine purpose, a redemption, and a world transcendent and eternal from which all sprang and to which all moved.  One of the two, John and Julian, was the Vicar, and the other the Ape, of God...and Percy's heart in one more spasm of conviction made its choice..."

It is 2014 and the world has not ended.  Christ has not returned.  But until the day He does, we each make our choice: what will we believe?  As attacks against the Faith grow in our day, perhaps we will find that the choice to believe demands further sacrifice.  Persecution may await us, too.  Our faith will be tested.

I thank God for the gift of faith--given out of love and generosity to me, a gift completely undeserved and unmerited.  It is the most valuable gift I have ever been given.  I need to ask myself: how precious do I guard that gift?  Do I thank God for it?  Am I helping to make that gift grow--for faith can be shaken, can be destroyed.

And so, when the priest elevates the Host at the moment of consecration, I pray: 

Lord, I believe!  Help my unbelief!  (Mark 9:24)

When Christ comes again, may I still be believing!

Lessons from Return of the King

"For thus it is spoken: Oft hope is born, when all is forlorn." 

In this final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frodo and the Fellowship find themselves in the darkest places yet--literally and figuratively.

As Sauron wages his war by attacking Gondor, the sky itself becomes black and day looks no different from night.  

The word was darkling.  The very air seemed brown, and all things about were black and grey and shadowless; there was a great stillness.  No shape of cloud could be seen, unless it were far away westward, where the furthest groping fingers of the great gloom still crawled onwards and a little light leaked through them.  Overhead there hung a heavy roof, sombre and featureless, and light seemed rather to be failing than growing.

The battle strategy for confronting such evil seems almost absurd.  Gondor, the principle city opposing Mordor, must be defended against Sauron's powerful, relentless attack.  Such a victory depends on several factors, none of which are guaranteed and most of which are doubtful at least: whether the riders of Rohan can reach Gondor in time and find a way through to the battlefield, whether Aragorn can muster a force of his own, whether the Steward of Gondor, Denethor, can capably lead his people when they need him most...

Then, if such a victory should be achieved, the armies of Gondor must look still East, where the Ring-bearer slowly, painfully creeps into the heart of Mordor to destroy the one Ring.  To give Frodo his best chance, the forces of Gondor must wage their own offensive...a strategy that places them precisely in the very grip of the Enemy himself, severely outnumbered and overpowered.  But there is no other choice--all must be put on the line to distract Sauron, occupying his time and attention, diverting his Eye from the two small hobbits who carry with them the one thing he desires above all else, the one thing with which he could rule--and destroy--Middle Earth.

The goal of destroying the one Ring becomes bleaker as Frodo and Sam face growing perils and obstacles, from Gollum's treachery to the very elements of Mordor that provide few means for them to quench their scorched throats.  The Ring weighs upon Frodo with each step toward Mount Doom, until a blackness covers his eyes and the only image he can see is the fiery circle of Sauron.

The darkness of the Enemy is perhaps his most effective weapon.  In the face of such obvious, unrepentant, vicious evil, what can one do?  The weight of evil is powerful, crippling.  It drives fear into the heart and deadens one's will.  

"...yet another weapon, swifter than hunger, the Lord of the Dark Tower had: dread and despair.  The Nazgul came again, and as their Dark Lord now grew and put forth his strength, so their voices, which uttered only his will and his malice, were filled with evil and horror.  Ever they circled above the City, like vultures that expect their fill of doomed men's flesh.  Out of sight and shot they flew, and yet were ever present, and their deadly voices rent the air.  More unbearable they became, not less, at each new cry." 

The darkness of Mordor, of evil--it is the same darkness as Good Friday.  As Christ hung on the cross, His life slowly ebbing away, the sun's light failed and the world was cast into darkness.  

What must His disciples have felt at that 3:00 hour, when the Son of Man breathed His last?  Had Jesus failed?  As the stone was rolled over the tomb, the dead body of Christ laying in the dark sepulcher, what were the thoughts and feelings of His followers?  Doubt, fear, sorrow, distress, discouragement...had evil emerged the victor?

Perhaps the hope they had placed in their Rabbi was all for naught.  The darkness of evil threatens to quench any light of hope.

"Pride and despair!" he [Denethor] cried.  "Didst thou think that the eyes of the White Tower were blind?  Nay, I have seen more than thou knowest, Grey Fool.  For thy hope is but ignorance.  Go then and labor in healing!  Go forth and fight!  Vanity.  For a little space you may triumph on the field, for a day.  But against the Power that now arises there is no victory."

Denethor, steward of Gondor, derides the "fool's hope" Gandalf offers him.  It has all been determined: their fate is sealed.  The Evil is too great and it is only a matter of time until it has an unequivocal victory.  

And yet...

In the darkest regions of Mordor, deep in the black tunnels where Frodo and Sam find themselves lost, suffocating, and attacked, a light shines: the small phial given to Frodo by Galadriel, the great elf from Lorien.  

It is a literal light, dazzling in its brilliancy and power, overcoming the orcs and evil forces that are confronted with it.

It is a figurative light, too: it is the light of hope--a hope that shines when the darkness of evil is most pervasive and overwhelming 

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.  The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.  For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. 

No matter the gravity of the sin, no matter the violence of the evil, no matter the pain, the agony, the hurt--there is something greater.

Tonight in Catholic Churches around the world the night begins in darkness.  And then there is a light: the sole light of the new Paschal candle, which slowly spreads its flame through the assembly, illuminating the entire church and each person there.  

To the darkness of death, the light of life has come!

Sam realized this hope of the ultimate victory.  No matter what happened to him, whether he and Frodo actually succeeded or whether they ever returned home to the Shire--the Shadow of Sauron would never have the final say.  Evil never has the last word.  

The victory has been won!  The Ring being cast into the fires on the Mount of Doom is our sin being nailed to the cross on the Mount of Golgotha.  Out of the darkness of that Good Friday comes the radiant light of the Resurrection. 

We have our own light that we can cast into the shadows that threaten us, shadows of despair: Christ has won!  He is Risen! 

Sometimes, the evil of our personal sin or the sins of the world loom large over us and it is easy to lose our perspective.  The dirt and grime of today's failures, struggles, and pains cloud our eyes from looking beyond: beyond the cross, there is something more.  And one day, if we don't lose hope and continue in the struggle to choose what is good, one day we shall rise, too.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Cor 15:54-58)

Lessons from The Two Towers

...Here he was a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go.  It was an evil fate...This was an evil choice.  Which way should he choose?  And if both led to terror and death, what good lay in choice?

My college theology professor once said that there is one thing in theology that requires little to no argument to prove: original sin.  Just by opening the newspaper or listening to the nightly news, one is convinced pretty quickly that something is definitely wrong with human nature.  

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, evil occurred, an evil that intrinsically changed all of creation.  The order that God had designed within the soul of man was broken: no longer did reason govern and guide the will and the passions; now the passions seized control if not held in careful check.  

But creation itself also became disordered.  Death came to man; death came to the world, too.  Enmity arose between the man and the woman; enmity now also existed between the various kinds of animals. And creation itself was no longer peaceful.  

Consider Hurricanes Sandy & Irene, as well as the devastating tornadoes that affected the midwest a couple of years ago: all these horrific examples of nature become deadly, severe, destructive.  Where did this come from?  It comes from the fact that evil exists now in this world.

We see the same parallel in JRR Tolkien's world.  The battle of good and evil encompasses everything, including creation.  Thus one of the major contenders in the Two Towers is the natural world.  Sometimes creation works for the good, such as the ancient forest that avenges the orcs for their needless destruction of the trees and ultimately destroys evil Isengard.  

As with all things, however, sometimes creation is a force for evil.  Creation is also polluted and corrupted (literally and figuratively)--and thus, becomes an agent of iniquity.  Consider the great mountain Caradhras that battled against the fellowship in the first book of the trilogy.  In the Two Towers, the evil of Sauron's Mordor seeps into the very landscape and erases all that is good within it:

Frodo looked around in horror...here neither spring nor summer would ever come again.  Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness.  The gasping pools were chocked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about.  High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light.  They had come to the desolation of Mordor...a land defiled, diseased beyond all healing...The sun was up, walking among clouds and long flags of smoke, but even the sunlight was defiled.

Indeed, the world and every part of it is at war.  There is no middle ground: either one is for good or for evil.  The same, by the way, holds true for us.  As Our Lord says, "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters" (Luke 11:23).  

In this second part of the trilogy, the state of war escalates--the Two Towers contains some of the fiercest battle scenes yet, notably the battles at Helm's Deep and Isengard.  

Yet, as epic as these battles certainly are, I would argue that the warfare is most brutal, demanding, and costly on another front: that is within, in the interior of one's soul.  It is within the heart of man that the choice is made between good and evil.  All actions flow from that critical choice.

That is the lesson I took most from the Two Towers: the power of choice.  It is the freedom God has given to each one of us.  That battle between choosing good or choosing evil is one we constantly face.  

Consider these three potent example.

First, Gollum whose dual identity symbolizes these dueling forces.  On the one hand, there is Smeagol, who genuinely respects and has affection for his master, Frodo.  

"Then he [Gollum] came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee--but almost the touch was a caress.  For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit...Gollum withdrew himself and a green glint flickered under his heavy lids...The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall."

Smeagol does not wish Sauron to obtain the one Ring and thus wants to aid Frodo in his quest for the good.  Simultaneously, however, there is Gollum who lusts for the Ring that he once possessed and is willing to betray and kill to possess it yet again.

Gollum leads Frodo and Sam through dangerous, deadly territory as their guide, but the personal struggle he faces within is more critical and formidable.  Gollum's spoken dialogue with himself makes this interior war painfully clear.

"But Smeagol said he would be very very good.  Nice hobbit!  He took cruel rope off Smeagol's leg.  He speaks nicely to me."

"Very very good, eh, my precious?  Let's be good, good as fish, sweet one, but to ourselfs..."

One of the most suspenseful aspects of the Two Towers is the ongoing question of who will be the victor: Smeagol or Gollum?  And if Gollum, what will be the consequences for Frodo, Sam, and the Ring?

Then there is Saruman: once the greatest of all wizards, the head of the White Council.  He has wisdom, power, and influence.  All of these could be used for the good, which Gandalf aptly points out to him.  

However, instead of becoming an ally with the good, Saruman seeks to wield the one Ring himself.  Thus it is his tower of Orthanc that is one of the towers of evil.  

When Saruman is faced with defeat, Gandalf offers him an avenue of escape and redemption.  The decision is one that will determine Saruman's fate.  Unfortunately, this is Saruman's second, and most costly, defeat.

"But listen, Saruman, for the last time!  Will you not come down?  Isengard has proved less strong than your hope and fancy made it.  So may other things in which you still have trust.  Would it not be well to leave it for a while?  To turn to new things, perhaps?  Thing well, Saruman!  Will you not come down?"

A shadow passed over Saruman's face; then it went deathly white.  Before he could conceal it, they saw through the mask the anguish of a mind in doubt, loathing to stay and dreading to leave its refuge.  For a second he hesitated, and no one breathed.  Then he spoke, and his voice was shrill and cold.  Pride and hate were conquering him.

Finally, there is the Ring-bearer himself, Frodo.  The Ring and the evil it possesses literally weigh upon him and the hobbit must struggle to will what is good in light of the darkness surrounding him.

"...he [Frodo] felt only the beating upon him of a great power from outside.  It took his hand, and as Frodo watched with his mind, not willing it but in suspense (as if he looked on some old story far away), it moved the hand inch by inch toward the chain upon his neck.  Then his own will stirred; slowly it forced the hand back..."

Thus, evil occurs first in the heart of man when he chooses a lesser good.  The idiom "the devil made me do it" is misleading, as it is the free will of man put to ill-use that is the origin of evil.

However, this does not rule out the influence of the devil in the interior struggle, as the previous quote illustrates: the great power from outside is the power all of us sometimes encounter when Satan directs his attack against us.  One's temptation toward sin is influenced by outside forces: the lure and seductive voice of the devil.

As such, the closer Frodo approaches Mordor and its chief occupant, Sauron, the heavier the Ring feels around his neck.

Saruman makes his choice toward evil, but he does so under the persuasion and guidance of the Enemy working through the palantir, an orb that allows the viewer to see things across vast distances of space and time, and to communicate with others.  Saruman possessed one of the few remaining palantir and it was his curiosity that became the means by which the Enemy ensnared him.

"...alone it [the palantir] could do nothing but see small images of things far off and days remote.  Very useful, no doubt, that was to Saruman; yet it seems that he was not content.  Further and further abroad he gazed, until he cast his gaze upon Barad-dur.  Then he was caught!...Easy it is now to guess how quickly the roving eye of Saruman was trapped and held; and how ever since he has been persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve..."

Pippin becomes captive in a similar manner.  Inadvertently, in an effort to help Gandalf, he picks up the palantir.  (An episode that is a reminder to us, perhaps, to avoid people, places, and things that tempt us or are a near occasion of sin.)  
This physical proximity to evil has a decided effect upon Pippin, who later that night cannot stop his thoughts from returning to it.  He finally succumbs to the temptation when he stealthily steals the palantir from a sleeping Gandalf and slips away to look within it.

Pippin knows he is doing wrong, but proceeds anyway.  "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:19). 

This brings me to a final point about evil and sin.  It is precisely because the battle of evil is waged on the interior that we cannot judge the culpability of another, or the state of his or her soul.

What do I mean by this?

Only God knows what is at work within a person: the potency of the attack of the Enemy, the knowledge the individual possesses, the full freedom of the will in a decision, the gravity of the offense.  

Observing another person's actions or decisions, I can certainly say, "That is the matter...the stuff...of great evil."  Yet, I cannot say, "That person is in a state of sin," simply because I don't know all the factors and details of the interior battle being waged.

I was particularly struck by a reflection made by Sam as he observed the death of one of Sauron's soldiers:

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much.  He was glad that he could not see the dead face.  He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace...

Aragorn echoes a similar sentiment when Merry criticizes Pippin's misdeed concerning the palantir:

"If you had been the first to lift the Orthanc-stone, and not he [Pippin], how would it be now?" said Aragorn.  "You might have done worse.  Who can say?"

The truth of the matter is that we are all in battle, every day of of our lives.  We ourselves are the culprits when evil is done, through our willful decision to pursue a lesser good.  But our Enemy is at work, too, relentless striving to convince us his way--not God's--is the best way.  

To whose voice will we choose to listen?  What choices will we make today?

Lessons from The Fellowship

"It is very necessary to reconfirm in our own time the existence of the Devil which has been put in doubt by a culture of humanism, rationalism and materialism.  The Church has never had a doubt that the Devil exists.  Our language may be more discreet today, but the idea remains the same." 

~ Fr. Gabriele Amorth, Chief Exorcist of Rome

Author JRR Tolkien was very clear that his Lord of the Rings trilogy was not meant to be an allegory.  

That being said, Tolkien was a devout Catholic and it is clear to see that his formation in the Faith shaped and influenced what he wrote.

Frodo Baggins and the Fellowship formed around him face a quest against a very specific, very powerful enemy.  

His name is Sauron, but he is often referred to as the Dark Lord, the Shadow, the Enemy.  And from Tolkien's narrative about Middle Earth, we can come to understand a great deal about our own battle here on our earth.

We, too, like Frodo and his company face an Enemy.  The parallels between our Enemy and the Enemy in the Fellowship of the Ring are many.

"Then all listened while Elrond in his clear voice spoke of Sauron and the Rings of Power, and their forging...he told of the Elven-smiths of Eregion and their friendship with Moria, and their eagerness for knowledge, by which Sauron ensnared them.  For in that time he was not yet evil to behold..."

Sauron was not originally evil, nor was Satan.

The Fourth Lateran Council explains that, "The devil and the other demons were indeed created good, but they became evil by their own doing."

God, being All Good, can only create that which is good.  St. Hildegard, in one of her visions, describes how a large group of angels became conceited and pompous by their glory and thus attempted to assert their own authority.  Infatuated with their grandeur, they disregarded God and rather desired to be superior to the Almighty.  Recognizing this ambition as futile, they turned to their only other recourse: to reject God.  

St. Hildegard writes of Satan, "On this account they plunged downward into darkness, reduced to such a state of impotence...For God adorned the first of all the angels, Lucifer, with so much of the beauty granted to all creation that the whole heavenly host of angels was illuminated by Lucifer.  But now that he has turned toward contradiction, Lucifer has become uglier than ugliness itself."

In his discussion of evil, Augustine points to the Book of Genesis and the creation of the world when God divided light from darkness.  Augustine does not interpret this as the creation of night and day, but instead the separation of good and evil angels after Satan sinned.  Augustine explains that when God first created light, He created the angels (personified light).  There were angels, however, who turned away from good.  Light freely became darkness with this first sin.

Augustine asserts that, once the devil freely sinned, this marked the beginning of evil.  Evil was an historic event. 

Sauron succeeded in betraying the Elves because their desire for knowledge was so great.  Similarly, we read in Genesis that the serpent tricked Adam and Eve by offering them knowledge: the knowledge of good and evil.

"...I told you of Sauron the Great, the Dark Lord.  The rumors that you have heard are true: he has indeed arisen again and left his hold in Mirkwood and returned to his ancient vastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor.  That name even you hobbits have heard of, like a shadow on the borders of old stories.  Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

What is the Dark Lord?  He doesn't seem to be an elf, man, dwarf, or hobbit.  He is amorphous...a shadow.

This idea of a "Shadow" strongly coincides with the Church's understanding of evil.

A shadow isn't something you can touch or hold.  It isn't really something at all--it is a privation of something...in this case, light.  

The same is true of evil: it is the absence of good.  Origen wrote, "...to depart from the good mean just this, to be established in evil.  For it is certain that evil is the lack of good."

Satan is persistent.  Though cast out of heaven, he roams about the earth, taking many shapes to tempt and ensnare us.

In the black abyss there appeared a single Eye that slowly grew, until it filled all the Mirror.  So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze.  The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing. 

And that is what Satan, like Sauron, has to offer us: nothing.  They are ultimately empty because they lack God, who is everything for us.  When we turn from what is the greatest good (God) for a lesser good, we tread the path of evil and enter into a darkness.  

As Sauron gazed watchful and intent, so are we cautioned: "Be sober, be watchful.  Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour" (1 Peter 5:8).  

Our battle, like that in the Fellowship, demands constant vigilance.  We need not live in fear, but we do need to be always wary of the direction of our thoughts, words, and actions.

While on their journey, Frodo and his companions are on constant look-out for the Black Riders, ominous black horses driven by foreboding, cloaked figures.  

"For the black horses can see, and the Riders can use men and other creatures as spies...They themselves do not see the world of light as we do, but our shapes cast shadows in their minds, which only the noon sun destroys; and in the dark they perceive many signs and forms that are hidden from us: then they are most to be feared.  And at all times they smell the blood of living things, desiring and hating it.  Senses, too, there are other than sight or smell.  We can feel their presence--it troubled our hearts, as soon as we came here, and before we saw them; they feel ours more keenly." 

These Dark Riders are "shadows under his [Sauron's] great Shadow."  They are under the dominion of Sauron and operate as his servants.

Similarly, Satan has legions of demons at his command in his effort to snare the people of God.  The demons, like Satan, possess great knowledge--though fallen, they are still angels, which means they are pure intellect.  They use this knowledge to pursue our downfall, tempting us with that which we struggle the most.  And as the Fellowship could sense the presence of the Black Riders, so can we sometimes sense the demons...in others, in certain physical places, even in our own thoughts.

Thankfully, the light of Christ banishes these evil shadows, if we stay close to Him.  He is the Sun that destroys them.

“Wickedness turns out to be the pursuit of something good in the wrong way.” (CS Lewis, Mere Christianity)

In The Fellowship, the Dark Lord is clearly evil and there are those who are his evil accomplices--orcs, wolves, trolls, etc.  

Yet, those who are presented as good in the narrative are not immune to evil; in fact, they can even become agents of it.

That is often where Satan snares us the most.  We always desire what is good, but often fall into sin and darkness by pursuing the good in the wrong way. 

Thus, Boromir (a member of the Fellowship aiding Frodo in his quest to destroy Sauron's Ring) becomes an agent of evil.  

His intention is good: to help his fellow men in Gondor in their battle and thus vanquish Sauron.  However, he ultimately decides the only way to do this is by wielding the One Ring himself.  What he doesn't understand is that anyone who cooperates with this evil, even with the desire to do good, will inevitably become evil himself.

It is a classic case of the end not justifying the mean.  We cannot cooperate with evil and hope to do good at the same time.

"Frodo rose to his feet.  A great weariness was on him, but his will was firm and his heart lighter.  He spoke aloud to himself. 'I will do now what I must,' he said.  'This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at work even in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more harm...'...So Frodo and Sam set off on the last stage of the Quest together."

Frodo is determined, by the end of the first part of the trilogy, to destroy the Ring because it is a tool of the Enemy.  

Perhaps we, on the eve of Ash Wednesday, can consider in what ways we may cooperate with the Enemy.  Are there ways in our life that we seek good things in the wrong way?  Do we carry with us power or pleasure--"precious" things--that ultimately draw us closer to darkness than to the light?  

If so, may this Lent be a time for our own journey to cast what is evil into the fire.