Eucatastrophe

from Tolkien Gateway

If your only experience with author J. R. R. Tolkien is to watch the movie versions of his masterpiece Lord of the Rings, you may not know that he invented this word: "eucatastrophe."

An Oxford professor and scholar in the mid-20th century, he wrote "high fantasy" fiction that is always counted among the most popular books of the whole century.

He was a genuine Christian living in the skeptical Oxford culture, who influenced the young atheist C. S. Lewis. Tolkien believed that the Christian narrative is true and it gave his work a hopeful, positive nature. Here's what he says about the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrated yesterday on Easter:

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy . . it is a sudden glimpse of Truth . . this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. . . The Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible . . Christian joy . . comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love."