I received an e-mail yesterday from someone asking about “a matrix or list of dates in The Lord of the Rings and how they aligned with Catholic holidays”. The same correspondent also asked whether I could “recommend a good introductory book” to the life and work of St. Thomas Aquinas, citing books on Aquinas of which he was already aware “by Maritain, Chesterton, Gilson, Pieper, et al”. I thought I’d share my response to these questions with visitors to this site:

I’m not aware of a systematic study of the Catholic significance of the dates employed in LOtR. Indeed one of my many literary desires is to find time to undertake such a study myself. Needless to say, any such study must concentrate solely on the old “unreformed” calendar, prior to Vatican II. The most important significant dates, however, are March 25 and December 25, the first being the date on which the ring is destroyed, the second the date on which the Fellowship leaves Rivendell. March 25 is the most significant date in the whole calendar. It is not only the date of the Annunciation, i.e. the date of the Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, but is also the date of the Crucifixion, according to the tradition of the Fathers and the mediaeval Church. Thus, this one date unites the life and death of Christ (and by implication the resurrection) and encompasses the entirety of Christ’s Redemptive act. Frodo’s journey from Rivendell to Mount Doom (Golgotha) is, therefore, symbolic of the life of Christ. In consequence, the ring is a figurative representation of sin.

As for Aquinas, I’m emphatically not an expert. Apart from the authors you mention, the introduction to Aquinas that I found most formative in my own spiritual and intellectual development was F. C. Copleston’s Aquinas. Copleston, as you may know, was a celebrated Jesuit philosopher, and convert to the Faith.