Welcome again to Lent with Niggle. This is the fifth installment. Did you miss the first, second, third or fourth installment? No problem, here are the links:
As far as the story line goes, here is where we are at in this fifth week of Lent:
Niggle is, in fact, let out of the ‘Workhouse’ and ushered onto a train again – a pleasant little train, painted in cheerful colors. Upon asking where he is going to go, the Porter tells him that his destination does not have a name yet. Hint: You will learn the name in our sixth and last installment of “Lent with Niggle”, or can find it out earlier by reading the final paragraph of the short story Leaf by Niggle.
After a short ride through a pretty landscape under blue skies, Niggle arrives in said unnamed place. It has neither station nor town, only a green embankment and a wicket-gate with a yellow bicycle with Niggle’s name standing by it.
Niggle pushed open the gate, jumped on the bicycle, and went bowling downhill in the spring sunshine. Before long he found that the path on which he had started had disappeared, and the bicycle was rolling along over a marvellous turf. It was green and close; and yet he could see every blade distinctly. He seemed to remember having seen or dreamed of that sweep of grass somewhere or other. The curves of the land were familiar somehow. Yes: the ground was becoming level. as it should, and now, of course, it was beginning to rise again. A great green shadow came between him and the sun. Niggle looked up, and fell off his bicycle. Before him stood the Tree, his Tree, finished. If you could say that of a Tree that was alive, its leaves opening, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle so often felt or guessed, and had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the Tree, and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide. ‘It’s a gift!’ he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the word quite literally. (…) Niggle walked about, but he was not merely pottering. He was looking round carefully. The Tree was finished, though not finished with – ‘Just the other way about to what it used to be,’ he thought.
It appears that Niggle arrived precisely where he had spent most of his life. The country now before him is the world he created, in his own head as well as on his canvas. While Niggle was wholly unprepared for his final journey, he had spent the greater part of his life shaping the world he would journey to. Niggle’s pursuit was artistic in nature. He craved Beauty (with a capital B) and strove to express this craving, however imperfectly he went about doing so. This is why, when all his life’s dross is burned off in the crucible of the Workhouse, the refined Niggle enters a country of such beauty.
Welcome again to Lent with Niggle. This is the fourth installment. Did you miss the first, second, or third installment? No problem, here are the links:
As far as the story line goes, here is where we are at in this fourth week of Lent:
Niggle goes on his final journey and ends up in the ‘Workhouse’, given that he comes equipped with – well, nothing, in fact. There he is left alone for the most part and has to follow instructions on every aspect of his existence. This existence, once he has recovered from his illness, consists in work and rest, all by himself with no time outside, and all windows pointing inward.
Being Niggle – that is to say, a man who would be inclined to much distraction, ‘niggling’ away his time by obsessing about details and worrying about all kinds of things – his Workhouse time teaches him, very slowly, to plan the work and work the plan, as they say. He learns to be quite useful and efficient, to pick up and put down a work at the ring of a bell, and to stop fretting about anything and everything. In short, it teaches him how to become master of his time as well as his thoughts. Thus, Niggle learns to derive a degree of satisfaction from his productivity – “bread instead of jam.“
Finally, after a short episode of exceedingly exhausting, mindless labor, Niggle is ordered to rest completely. Lying on his bed in the dark, he becomes aware of a conversation going on, seemingly nearby. New Voices are talking – about him:
‘Now the Niggle case,’ said a Voice, a severe voice, more severe than the doctor’s. ‘What was the matter with him?’ said a Second Voice, a voice that you might have called gentle, though it was not soft – it was a voice of authority, and sounded at once hopeful and sad. ‘What was the matter with Niggle? His heart was in the right place.’ ‘Yes, but it did not function properly,’ said the First Voice. ‘And his head was no screwed on tight enough: he hardly ever thought at all. Look at the time he wasted, not even amusing himself! He never got ready for his journey. He was moderately well off, and yet he arrived here almost destitute, and had to be put in the paupers’ wing. A bad case, I’m afraid. I think he should stay some time yet.’ ‘It would not do him any harm, perhaps,’ said the Second Voice. ‘But, of course, he is only a little man. He was never meant to be anything very much; and he was never very strong. Let us look at the Records. Yes. There are some favorable points, you know.’ ‘Perhaps,’ said the First Voice; ‘but very few that will really bear examination. (…) It is your task, of course, to put the best interpretation on the facts. Sometimes they will bear it. What do you propose?’ ‘I think it is a case for a little gentle treatment now,’ said the Second Voice. Niggle thought that he had never heard anything so generous as that Voice. It made Gentle Treatment sound like a load of rich gifts, and a summons to a King’s feast. Then suddenly Niggle felt ashamed. To hear that he was considered a case for Gentle Treatment overwhelmed him, and made him blush in the dark. (…) Niggle hid his blushes in the rough blanket. There was a silence. (…) ‘Well, I agree,’ Niggle heard the First Voice say in the distance. ‘Let him go on to the next stage. Tomorrow, if you like.’
What we see in this part of the story is Niggle’s time in Purgatory, and a sort of judgment at the end of it. The punishment fits the crime – having been a niggler in life who endlessly worried and fretted about things in his thoughts and complained – mostly under his breath – about his lot, he has to learn how to use his time and his thoughts well. A bit of laziness also needed to be weeded out, it would seem. And while he had been reasonably ‘well endowed’ when he started out, he ended up completely unprepared when his time came: He was spiritually destitute. All this proves that life offered Niggle lessons he did not learn, and opportunities he did not take. He ended up worse off than necessary, apparently.
But while life in the Workhouse is far from easy or pleasant for Niggle, it teaches him all those lessons he missed in life, preparing him for the next stage. Had he been more deliberate in life, one gets the impression his time in the Workhouse would have been both shorter and less disagreeable, if not been avoided it altogether. Of course, it also could have been much worse.
All this the Voices reflect on. To me, they represent two qualities of God, if you will: The First Voice represents the Just God, the Second Voice the Merciful God. It is our free choice in life which of them we wish to meet first and foremost when our time comes, as we learn from St. Faustina.
As far as the story line goes, here is where we are at in this third week of Lent:
The ‘Driver’, i.e. Niggle’s psychopomp, appears beside the Inspector we already met in the Second Installment of this little series.
‘But I can’t…’ Niggle said no more, for at that moment another man came in. Very much like the Inspector he was, almost his double: tall, dressed all in black. ‘Come along!’ he said. ‘I am the Driver.’ Niggle stumbled down from the ladder. His fever seemed to have come on again, and his head was swimming; he felt cold all over. ‘Driver? Driver?’ he chattered. ‘Driver of what?’ ‘You, and your carriage,’ said the man. ‘The carriage was ordered long ago. It has come at last. It’s waiting. You start today on your journey, you know.’ (…) ‘Oh dear!’ said poor Niggle, beginning to weep. ‘And [my tree is] not even finished!’ ‘Not finished!’ said the Driver. ‘Well, it’s finished with, as far as you’re concerned, at any rate. Come along!’ Niggle went, quite quietly. The Driver gave him no time to pack, saying that he ought to have done that before, and they would miss the train; so all Niggle could do was grab a little bag in the hall. He found that it contained only a paint box and a small book of his own sketches; neither food nor clothes. They caught the train all right. Niggle was feeling very tired and sleepy; he was hardly aware of what was going on when they bundled him into his compartment. He did not care much: he had forgotten where he was supposed to be going, or what he was going for. The train ran almost at once into a dark tunnel.
Death might be a scary thought, or at least uncomfortable, or maybe distasteful for you, like it is for Niggle, but think or feel what you may, there it is: We all will go one day, sooner or later, and preparation is required. It is hard to die well if you die unprepared.
In Tolkien’s Silmarillion, he describes death as having been a gift to man, but with time it became ever harder for man to appreciate it:
But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world; wherefore they are called the Guests, or the Strangers. Death is their fate, the gift of Ilúvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy. But Melkor has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope. Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur.
An everlasting What-We-Know-Already appears preferable to the New-We-Know-Nothing-About. Maybe a change of attitude towards life and death is in order. It seems such a pity to reject a gift that offers a way out of the ever-spinning so-called Wheel of Fortune. But it is not to be had without effort, without preparation.
As far as the story line goes, here is where we are at in this second week of Lent:
Niggle is a painter, and his most important painting is not done – yet. Instead of getting it finished when he feels the time for his (final) journey drawing nearer and nearer, he goes on a bike ride through the rain to accommodate his every needy neighbor Parish – and promptly falls sick. When he is finally strong enough to ‘totter’ into his painting shed and paint again, an ‘Inspector’ arrives. Pointing at Niggle’s giant canvas, he informs the painter that his canvas is now needed for roof repairs in the neighborhood – dry houses are much more important than art, of course. Niggle resists the notion, but a ‘Driver’ arrives shortly after the Inspector. He tells Niggle that his journey, the long-expected one, will begin – instantly.
We will hear more about the Driver and the journey next week. Today, we will consider the Inspector’s rather unfeeling, yet certainly true comment:
‘There now!’ said the Inspector. ‘You’ll have to go; but it’s a bad way to start on your journey, leaving your jobs undone. Still, we can at least make some use of this canvas now.’
When you go, how will the jobs be taken care of that you did not finish? For Niggle, his beloved tree ends up in bits and pieces as shingles for his neighbor’s leaky roof.
Although for Tolkien unfinished jobs were also quite a literal problem, learning from Niggle’s experience is useful for spiritual jobs, if you will, as well. Focus helps. There are things to tackle. It’s a bad way to start on your journey leaving your jobs undone.
There was once a little man called Niggle, who had a long journey to make. He did not want to go, indeed the whole idea was distasteful to him; but he could not get out of it. He knew he would have to start sometime, but he did not hurry with his preparations.
Of the short fiction J.R.R. Tolkien wrote and published, Leaf by Niggle is probably the most fitting for the season Lent, if you are inclined towards such things. Therefore, we offer you a small series of short quotes and comments on Tolkien’s short story, something to ponder during your Lenten weeks. This post is the first instalment of “Lent with Niggle”. If you are unfamiliar with the story, read it here:
Lent is the time of the year when we most consider this life, and the next – memento mori. J.R.R. Tolkien had his own way of dealing with death, a reality he had to face very early in life, as a child, as a young adult, and that he reflected upon more or less obviously in much of his writing. Leaf by Niggle is undoubtedly autobiographical as well as an allegory, as can be seen right from the start, and deals less with experienced loss, but with his own death. In good Tolkien-ian manner, Leaf by Niggle begins by relating this story – his own story – to the larger historical ‘cauldron of stories’.
Allegorical meaning is signaled at once by the first sentence: ‘There was once a little man called Niggle, who had a long journey to make.’ The reason for his journey is never explained, nor how he knows that he has to make one. But there should be no doubt as to what this means. The Old English poem ‘Bede’s Death-Song’ begins, in its original Northumbrian dialect, ‘Fore thaem neidfaerae’, ‘(Be)fore the need-fare’. A ‘need-fare’, or ‘need-faring’, is a compulsory journey, a journey you have to take, and that journey, Bede declares, begins on one’s ‘deothdaege’ or ‘death-day’. So the long journey the ‘little man’ Niggle has to make – which all men have to make – is death. The image is at once ‘as old as the hills’, completely temporary, and totally familiar. This is the easiest of the equations in the extended allegory.
~ Tom Shippey: J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
Expect the second installment of “Lent with Niggle” next Wednesday!
For people who wish to add external penances to their interior mortifications, how to ‘take the discipline’ becomes a question that is not so easy to answer. Of course, I can just start to randomly whack my back with a whip, but for how long do I continue? How often do I repeat the ordeal? And what should I contemplate while I am taking the discipline?
St. Faustina on How to Take the Discipline
Naturally, there are plenty of ways to ‘take the discipline’. One of them was described by St. Faustina in her diary, late in the year 1935. If you were asking yourself how to start, if you are looking for guidance, consider this:
“Interior mortifications take the first place, but besides this, we must practice exterior mortifications, strictly determined, so that all can practice them. These are: on three days a week, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, there will be a strict fast. Each Friday, all the sisters – each one in her own cell – will take the discipline for the length of the recitation of Psalm 50 and all will do this at the same time; namely, three o’clock; and this will be offered for dying sinners. During the two great fasts, ember days and vigils, the food will consist of a piece of bread and some water, once a day.”
Source: Divine Mercy in My Soul: Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, Notebook II, Entry 565.
Three Things to Ponder
Three things I wish to draw your attention to:
The sisters are to take the discipline in their own cells, that is, alone. Taking the discipline here is not a public penance, but a personal, private one. In other words, this is not an occasion of public humiliation.
“For the length of the recitation of Psalm 50” is a rather interesting ‘amount of time’. Obviously, a sister can rush through this as quickly as she can say the 19 verses of this psalm, barely getting one stripe in per verse, or she can dwell on each verse and devote several strokes to each.
St. Faustina states precisely what this ‘session’ should be offered for, namely “for dying sinners“. To take the discipline is not restricted to acts of reparation for ones own sins, but can be offered up, like all internal and external penances, for the benefit of others.
Numbering of Psalms
To avoid confusion: The Ps 50 mentioned by St. Faustina is the Fourth Penitential Psalm, Miserere mei Deus, in English it starts with “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy great mercy”. Depending on who does the counting, this Psalm shows up as either 50 or 51. Here is a quick overview concerning the counting differences:
Psalms 1-8 are the same in Hebrew and the Septuagint. Psalms 9 and 10 in Hebrew are combined as Psalm 9 in the Septuagint. Psalms 11-113 in Hebrew are Psalms 10-112 in the Septuagint (Hebrew-1 = Greek). Psalms 114 and 115 in Hebrew are combined as Psalm 113 in the Septuagint. Psalm 116 in Hebrew is divided into Psalms 114 and 115 in the Septuagint. Psalms 117-146 in Hebrew are Psalms 116-145 in the Septuagint (Hebrew-1 = Greek). Psalm 147 in Hebrew is divided into Psalms 146 and 147 in the Septuagint. Psalms 148-150 are the same in Hebrew and the Septuagint.
The month of January has traditionally been dedicated to the Most Holy Name of Jesus.
We find devotion to the Holy Name to be deeply rooted in Sacred Scripture, especially in the Acts of the Apostles. It was promoted particularly the Franciscan Order, St. John Capistrano, as well as St. Bernard and St. Bernardine of Siena, and extended to the whole Church in 1727, during the pontificate of Innocent XIII.
The Church praises the wonders of the Incarnate Word by singing the glories of His name. The name of Jesus means “Savior”; it had been shown in a dream to Joseph together with its meaning, and to Our Lady at the annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel.
This year, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus on January 3rd, 2025. If you wish to honor the Most Holy Name of Jesus on this day especially, consider praying a chaplet dedicated to it. The chaplet can be prayed with any tenner or rosary and consists of three sets of ten for you to keep track of. On the large beads, you pray a quote from Scripture and add your intention, as stated below:
IHS monogram, with kneeling angels, atop the main altar, Church of the Gesù, Rome
Chaplet of the Holy Name of Jesus
+ By the Sign of the Holy Cross, + from our enemies deliver us, + O Lord, our God. + In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Act of Contrition
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen.
Prayer
Incline unto my aid, O God. O Lord, make haste to help me.
(If you prefer to pray this in Latin: Deus in adiutorium meum intende, Domine ad adiuvandum me festina.)
First Decade:
On the large bead, you pray the following:
Lord, Thou hast said: “Ask and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you,” I seek, I knock, I ask this favor [here, you can mention your intention].
On each of the ten small beads, pray:
Incline unto my aid, O God. O Lord, make haste to help me.
Deus in adiutorium meum intende, Domine ad adiuvandum me festina
Second Decade:
On the large bead, you pray thus:
“Amen, I say unto you, if ye ask the Father anything in My Name it shall be given unto you.” It is of the Father and in Thy Name, Lord, I ask this favor [here, you can mention your intention again].
On each of the ten small beads, you pray:
Incline unto my aid, O God. O Lord, make haste to help me.
Deus in adiutorium meum intende, Domine ad adiuvandum me festina
Third Decade:
On the large bead, you pray this:
Lord, Thou hast said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass away,” Thou wilt grant me this favor [here, you can mention your intention once more] because Thou hast said it and Thy word is true.
On each of the ten small beads, you pray:
Incline unto my aid, O God. O Lord, make haste to help me.
Deus in adiutorium meum intende, Domine ad adiuvandum me festina.
“Free Will”, “Your Choice” – Theologians as well as philosophers have written more about the topic than one person can read and digest in a lifetime. Our Lord Jesus, on the other hand, can sum it up much more succinctly: Mercy or Justice – You Choose.
“(90) Write: I am Thrice Holy, and I detest the smallest sin. I cannot love a soul which is stained with sin; but when it repents, there is no limit to My generosity toward it. My mercy embraces and justifies it. With My mercy, I pursue sinners along all their paths, and My Heart rejoices when they return to Me. I forget the bitterness with which they fed My Heart and rejoice at their return.
Tell sinners that no one shall escape My Hand; if they run away from My Merciful Heart, they will fall into My Just Hands. Tell sinners that I am always waiting for them, that I listen intently to the beating of their heart . . . when will it beat for Me? Write that I am speaking to them through their remorse of conscience, through their failures and sufferings, through thunderstorms, through the voice of the Church. And if they bring all My graces to naught, I begin to be angry (90) with them, leaving them alone, and giving them what they want.”
~ Jesus to St. Maria Faustina, quoted after “Divine mercy in My Soul. Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska”, Stockbridge, MA 1987, p. 610f.
When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a letter to his son Michael (then in his tweens) giving relationship advice, it being late January of the year 1941 while Michael was recovering from an injury at the hospital in Worchester, he explained at length how things had gone in his own life. The letter comes as close to a biography of Tolkien’s life up until that point as it gets, and the last lines of it (as printed in Humphrey Carpenter’s 1981 edition of “The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien“, Letter 43, quoting from page 53f.) have been oft quoted:
“Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: The Blessed Sacrament … There you will find romance, glory, honor, 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.” —J.R.R. Tolkien
As relationship advice goes, I dare say it is somewhat surprising. Why? Because it goes far beyond the ordinary advice a father would give his son when it comes to such matters. And yet, as far as I can see, there is no better advice.
Michael went on to marry Joan Griffiths with whom he had three children. One might have expected him to become a priest after such advice, but that was the choice his older brother John instead. As a sidenote, it might be of interest that John Tolkien became an exorcist even before being ordained.
The 1908 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia characterised the task that faced him:“To extirpate inveterate abuses; to reform a court which thrived on corruption, and detested the very name of reform; to hold in leash young and warlike princes, ready to bound at each other’s throats; to stem the rising torrent of revolt in Germany; to save Christendom from the Turks, who from Belgrade now threatened Hungary, and if Rhodes fell would be masters of the Mediterranean – these were herculean labours for one who was in his sixty-third year, had never seen Italy, and was sure to be despised by the Romans as a ‘barbarian’.
In Utrecht they still point out this house to strangers,And name it after him: the house of pope Adrian,Still his bust stands in its façade. Less elevatedWas the ancestry of this pope, the son of a boat builder,His name is still proudly spoken by thousands of tongues,Only briefly, but with honor, he wore the papal crown.
