Tolkien and the Eucatastrophe

The sudden and unexpected good turn which brings tears

Written on the Feast of Holy Innocents | December 28, 2023

So very often our world can seem to be teetering only a hairsbreadth from utter destruction. If you were to watch the news you might believe that a single push, a rush of air, and the world would shatter apart.

And in such a world, where it looks as though the dark Shadow is overpowering and triumphant, I encourage you to pick up J.R.R. Tolkien and to learn the meaning of Christian hope and joy. Tolkien is the master who teaches us the nature of hope in a world which can seem so dreadfully dark. He is the master of articulating what he himself terms “eucatastrophe.”

From The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 89:

"... I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy stories to produce).

And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of truth... It perceives-- if the story has literary 'truth'...--that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made.

And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest fairy story-- and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love..."

In a world dark and dreadful, when even the Church can seem a place full of division and strife, we truly do believe in the eucatastrophe which is Christ, His Resurrection, and its ongoing effects in us and all of Creation. We believe in the joy which can on first glance seem so very much like sorrow.

It is precisely in the space and time which looks so dark and so dreadful that grace enters into the picture, when God makes his presence felt.

A eucatastrophe is, quite simply put, a miracle. It is the divine entering into the messy and muddy historical narrative.

But the joy, the sigh of relief when we recognize this intervention, this miracle, is unexpected. It comes only after the sorrow of seemingly inevitable despair and defeat.

In that moment of grace-filled intervention, sorrow and joy find themselves partners and even friends. For what is sorrow except love which fears loss? And what is joy except love which finds itself remarkably and unexpectedly in possession of that which it loves?

In The Fellowship of the Rings the elf, Haldir, says one of those iconic lines that we should likely spend more time with:

“Though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

And at Easter what do we call the sin of Adam and Eve except Felix culpa, O Happy Fault, which won for us so great a redeemer…?

Does this suddenly make sorrow good? No. Sorrow and grief are still exactly what they are: things we wish had not come to us.

But it is only in a world that is seemingly very dark that the light can be clearly seen by our dim and mortal eyes, the flame flickering dimly and yet not extinguished.

By grace, sadness and joy can truly work together. Not all tears are evil.

For a Christian there are no tragedies, or at least not any final tragedies. Tragedy becomes comedy in the light of God’s grace and even comedy is transformed into something far more marvelous: fairy tale.

All our stories, every story which is visible in the light of Jesus Christ, truly does end with that piercing and poignant line “and they lived happily ever after.”

Don’t be afraid of your sorrow, it is not a sin to be sorrowful or to be grieving. Sarah and Abraham grieved for their barrenness.

So did Hannah.

So did Zechariah and Elizabeth.

The mothers and fathers of the Holy Innocents who were murdered by a corrupt and frightened king were grieving.

And yet their sorrow was answered by a sudden and sharp turn to joy. By Love, which is God’s very nature.

From tragedy, to comedy, and finally into fairy tale. This is the path of grace, the path that God walks with us.

We are all of us living in a eucatastrophe. The sudden and sharp joy is coming and is already here. We need only be aware of it.