Happy 118th Birthday, Ronnie!

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
January 3 1892-September 2 1973

Your literary brilliance continues to grace the world in all forms. I really do wish you could be around today, if only to shake some sense into modern authors.

"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustration, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death. By the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste -or foretaste- of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires."