'Above all shadows, rides the sun': How 'The Lord of the Rings' unlocks spiritual realities

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What can the story of an all-powerful ring, a dark lord, a humble hobbit and his ragtag fellowship of companions teach us about the spiritual realities of the world and the ultimate meaning of life?

Renowned J.R.R. Tolkien scholar Joseph Pearce unlocked the answer to this question and much more in a Feb. 24 private lecture given at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Pearce has written three books about Tolkien's life and works, in addition to many others that delve into the relationship between faith and literature.

While the Peter Jackson films and recent Amazon Prime series have helped to popularize The Lord of the Rings in mainstream culture over the last 25 years, Pearce was quick to note that it is the original series and related works written by Tolkien, the first of which is The Hobbit, published nearly 90 years ago, that remain the purest and most authentic form of the story. (“Tolkien does not need Peter Jackson; Peter Jackson needs Tolkien,” he quipped.)

For those who are unaware, The Lord of the Rings follows a young hobbit named Frodo Baggins, who comes to possess an ancient ring with limitless power. As the ring threatens to revive the dark lord Sauron in bodily form and bring about an age of darkness in Middle-Earth, Frodo is tasked with taking the ring and casting it into the fires of Mount Doom, which is the only place the ring can be destroyed. What unfolds throughout the three books of The Lord of the Rings — which Tolkien actually wrote as a singular novel — constitutes one of the greatest stories in the modern age.

The enduring power of The Lord of the Rings goes far beyond the rich fantasy world and memorable characters that Tolkien created. As Pearce pointed out, Tolkien’s epic tale of good versus evil reveals something deeper about humanity.

“Tolkien gave a famous lecture which became an essay, On Fairy Stories, and he said that fairy stories hold up a mirror to man,” Pearce explained. “They show us ourselves. But it’s a magic mirror. … It shows us not just who we are on the surface but who we are in the depths of our being, and even more than that, not just who we are at the deepest level but who we should be and who we should not be. That’s what the great story shows us, that’s what The Lord of the Rings shows us.”

Tolkien knew that man could not know who he truly was apart from God, which is why he weaved Catholic themes deep into the narrative of The Lord of the Rings — even if they aren’t readily apparent at the surface. After all, as Tolkien himself said: “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion,' to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism.”

These religious elements of which Tolkien speaks reveal themselves in subtle ways throughout the story, and then with greater force upon subsequent read-throughs. Tolkien’s wider legendarium of Middle Earth, including his creation story in The Silmarillion, further reveals these religious aspects. For example, Pearce pointed out how both The Silmarillion and the Book of Genesis start in almost the exact same way: “In the beginning was the One…”

“This is not an atheistic cosmos with no God, it’s not a polytheistic cosmos with lots of gods, it’s a monotheistic cosmos with one God,” Pearce said.

Even Tolkien’s created world adheres to and reflects the created order of our world. This is very clearly intentional on his part, not in an allegorical way (because Tolkien detested allegory), but rather in a mimetic sense, meant to mimic and imitate reality as Tolkien saw it.

As such, The Lord of the Rings is rife with references to the Catholic worldview, both direct and indirect. The chief example of this is the One Ring around which the entire story revolves. The ring is synonymous with sin and the unbearable strain that it puts on the human person and his relationship to the divine. As the story progresses and Frodo bears the ring, the effects it has on him are akin to those of sin on the human soul.

“The wearing of the Ring is the act of sin,” Pearce pointed out. “You put the Ring on, you’ve committed an act of sin. You become invisible to the good world that was made, but you’re more visible than ever to Sauron. … The longer you keep the Ring on, the more you fall under his control.”

Pearce further explained that in true mimetic fashion, the characters in The Lord of the Rings reflect three classical understandings of what it is to be a human person: anthropos, homo viator and homo superbus. This is in opposition to the modern understanding of the human person as a homo sapien, which means “wise man.”

“What you will not find anywhere in The Lord of the Rings — you look as hard as you like — you will not find any homo sapiens,” Pearce said. “Homo sapiens means ‘wise man’ and if you know anything at all about history, every generation of human beings makes the same mistake as every other generation of human beings.”

These three classical understandings of the human person get to the heart of man’s nature as wonderers (anthropos), wayfarers (homo viator) and wanters (homo superbus). As wayfarers, we are on a quest in this life, and our ultimate destination is Heaven. But our call as wayfarers struggles against our temptation as wanters; often, instead of carrying out the journey we’re called to, we give in to our wants and remain stationary, not going anywhere at all. These struggles play out in The Lord of the Rings, especially when Frodo and the other heroes wrestle with giving up and succumbing to the darkness.

However, at a deeper level, Pearce explained that, as anthropos, it is in our nature to look up at the stars and wonder what it all means. Even amid all the struggles and trials of being human, the desire for meaning, purpose and, above all, hope is core to who we are.

Pearce shared how The Lord of the Rings illustrates this at one of the story’s darkest moments, when Frodo and his companion Samwise Gamgee are on the edge of Mordor, in the lair of the giant spider Shelob. The burden of the ring weighs heavily on Frodo, and he feels himself being overcome by the darkness.

“In the midst of all this,” Pearce said, “[Samwise] looks up, and it's obviously murky. There's no real light coming through because Sauron bent the weather to prevent the sunlight from actually penetrating Mordor. But he could look up, and he could see that in spite of that, beyond all that gray, there's a glimmer of sunlight. [And he sings], ‘Above all shadows, rides the sun.’ If you don't look up, you don't see.”

Of course, the ultimate illumination of shadows in history is the victory of Christ on the Cross over death and sin, and Tolkien brilliantly alludes to this as well at the climax of the trilogy, when (spoiler alert) the One Ring is at last destroyed.

“In The Lord of the Rings, the key that unlocks the whole story is the date on which the ring is destroyed, and the ring is destroyed on March 25,” Pearce explained. “March 25 is the date on which God becomes man, the word becomes flesh, the Feast of Annunciation, the feast of Incarnation. This is when God becomes man.

“So Tolkien has the ring destroyed on the feast of the Incarnation, the Feast of Annunciation,” Pearce continued. “That's good enough. But Tolkien understands his history. He also knows that, according to tradition, the historical date of the crucifixion is March 25. So the ring is destroyed on the same date on which God becomes man and on which Christ dies on the Cross for us.”

Two stories, one real and one fantasy, yet both signify the ultimate purpose of mankind: to overcome our weakness through grace and enter into the hope that we were created for. Therein lies the true power of Tolkien’s great masterpiece; among the hobbits, elves, dwarves and orcs, we can glean traces of the great story in which we are already swept up.

“What is the ring?” Pearce asked. “The one ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them. What is original sin? The one sin to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them. The one ring and the one sin are destroyed on the same date. Once you understand that, the whole story begins to come alive.”