By Father Casey

I am a great fan of The Lord of the Rings. I've read it numerous times and watched the films many times more. On the scale of Tolkien nerddom, I am pretty average, but other than the scriptures, I'm not sure there's anything written that is so cleanly etched into my spiritual imagination. So perhaps unsurprisingly, as I've been considering the Feast of All Saints that we'll celebrate this weekend, some of the characters and moments from the books popped into my head.

At a dinner party a few years ago, someone asked the table, "If you could be any character in any story, who would you be?" Before my brain had time to think I blurted out, "Aragorn." He is the epitome of an epic hero, whose courage and wisdom leads to the defeat of evil lord Sauron.

Tolkien puts a lot of effort into creating a complex but consistently virtuous hero in Aragorn, and he is clearly Christlike. He is long prophesied, fulfills a lineage thought to be broken, is able to pass through the land of the dead, and marches on the gate of the hellish land of Mordor. Aragorn would seem to be Tolkien's savior figure.

Except, Aragorn is not the "chief hero" in The Lord of the Rings, according to Tolkien. That role belongs to someone of much more meager stature: Samwise Gamgee. Sam is the loyal companion to the ringbearer, Frodo, and it is his loyalty and bravery that carry the tiny party across the wastelands to the fires of Mount Doom.  Without humble Sam, the ring would never have been destroyed, for at the end, when all seems lost, Sam literally puts Frodo and the ring on his shoulders and carries them up the mountain.

There are many scenes in which Tolkien reveals the extraordinary heart of the lowly hobbit, and speaks a kind of holy wisdom directly to readers. But my favorite is a moment when Frodo is feeling the weight of hopelessness and despair, and it seems he will not be able to continue. In response, Sam talks about the great stories of people who had a chance to turn back but didn't. In the film adaption, Sam says,

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going, because they were holding on to something: that there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."

I turn to this speech all the time, particularly when I'm feeling despair at the suffering and evil of the world. We keep going not because we are sure we will win, but because we can't possibly quit. We fight for good not because we can't lose, but because the good is worth fighting for.

This is the call of discipleship, the call of baptism, the call of sainthood: to be like Sam. Honestly, the world doesn't need more Aragorns, it needs more Sams. More hope in the darkness. More loyalty and devotion. More carrying of others and self-sacrifice. More carrying on for the sake of God's goodness, even when – perhaps especially when – all seems lost. For in truth, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. A new day will come, and the sun will shine out the clearer.