BREAD FOR THE JOURNEY
At “the breaking of the bread” they recognize Him and their eyes are opened. "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” - John 6:49-51
A Catholic writer whose works mirror the truth of our faith!
Many years later, when Michael was 43, Tolkien received a letter from his depressed son looking for consolation. It appears Michael wrote to his father about his “sagging faith” and began to doubt if God or the Catholic Church was true. This was Tolkien’s response.
The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.
Tolkien was known to attend daily Mass at a nearby church and his eldest son, John, became a priest and was with his father at his death bed, likely giving him holy viaticum, the Holy Eucharist, as he passed from this life to the next.
- Aletia Magazine
