Everyone in the world of media seems to be talking about the prequel to the Lord of the Rings, whose rights Amazon has bought after paying a fortune. A new episode of this prequel, called The Rings of Power, is now available every Friday on Amazon Prime Video. The man who wrote the world famous The Lord of the Rings is the ‘candle’ we can gaze at this month.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, called simply J.R.R. Tolkien. was born on 3 January 1892 in South Africa. His father, a bank manager, had been sent to work in the South African branch of the British Bank. When he was just three years old, his mother Mabel took him and his brother to England for a lengthy family visit. His father, who was to join them, died suddenly of rheumatic fever. Deprived of her husband’s regular salary, Mabel took her two sons to live with her family in Birmingham.
When Ronald was eight, his mother Mabel and her sister, May, became Catholics. Angered by her decision to become a Catholic, all her Baptist relatives and those of her husband cut off all financial assistance to her and her two sons. Undeterred, she and her two sons remained devout Catholics throughout their lives. The parish priest, who visited the family regularly, was Fr Francis Morgan.
In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was twelve, his mother died of acute diabetes, as insulin had not yet been discovered. Later Tolkien called her a martyr “who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith.” Before her death, Mabel had made Fr Morgan the guardian of her two sons.
Fr M A Joe Antony SJ
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