Tolkien, disciple of the Angelic Doctor?

Dr Michael Waldstein, an alumnus of Thomas Aquinas College in California and formerly president of the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria (where he remains a professor of New Testament studies), gave a speech at Heiligenkreuz in Austria on the 31st October on the idea of splendor or glory in St Thomas as it appears in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.  For those who hold the tale of the Ring dear, or the Angelic Doctor, it is necessarily wonderful reading.

Frodo’s task is mainly negative. He must destroy the ring. The positive side of the quest lies in Aragorn. If the ring is destroyed, Aragorn will become king of Gondor at a moment when the presence of Elves in Middle-earth diminishes and human beings come to the fore as the main people that must shape the life of Middle-earth. Frodo’s quest is therefore defined by a great and noble common good, a political good. This transition of Frodo from a private individual with a small radius of life to one who loves the common good of the kingdom established in Middle-earth is one of the most beautiful events in The Lord of the Rings. It corresponds to the rhythm of increase found at the beginning of the Silmarillion, at the very root of Middle-earth. A small story is suddenly enlarged into a story that has greatness, splendor and glory.

 
The virtue which most defines a Christian, St. Thomas emphasizes again and again, is love (caritas). This love, he argues, is not principally a personal or private virtue. It is principally a political virtue that is defined, not by a personal or private good, but by the common good of a city. “The philosopher says in Book Eight of the Politics that in order to be a good political person one must love the good of the city. Now when someone is admitted to participation in the good of some city and becomes a citizen of that city, he must have certain virtues in order to do what a citizen must do and to love the good of the city. In the same way, when someone is admitted by divine grace to participating in heavenly beatitude, which consists in the vision and enjoyment of God, he becomes, as it were, a citizen and member of that blessed society which is called the heavenly Jerusalem, according to Ephesians 2,19: ‘You are citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.’ Someone who is in this way counted as part of the heavenly city must have certain freely given virtues which are the infused virtues.

Via Michael E. Lawrence at New Liturgical Movement (and to Curt Jester before him).