{"product_id":"the-high-hallow","title":"The High Hallow","description":"\u003cp\u003eJ. R. R. Tolkien famously described \u003cem\u003eThe Lord of the Rings \u003c\/em\u003eas “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” But while these words have been widely and enthusiastically quoted in Catholic studies of Tolkien’s legendarium, readers have not always paid sufficient attention to what \u003cem\u003eCatholic \u003c\/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003ereligious\u003c\/em\u003e would have meant to Tolkien himself. To do so is to misunderstand the full import of the phrase.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom his childhood as an altar server and “junior inmate” of the Birmingham Oratory to daily Mass with his children as an adult, Tolkien’s Catholic religion was, at its heart, a liturgical affair. To be religious and Catholic in the Tolkienian sense is to be rooted in the prayer of the Church.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe High Hallow: Tolkien’s Liturgical Imagination\u003c\/em\u003e takes this claim seriously: \u003cem\u003eThe Lord of the Rings\u003c\/em\u003e (and Tolkien’s myth as a whole) is the product of an imagination seeped in liturgical prayer. In the course of its argument, the Ben Reinhard examines the liturgical pieties that governed Tolkien’s life from childhood to old age, the ways in which the liturgy colored Tolkien’s theory of myth and fantasy, and the alleged absence of religion in Middle-earth. Most importantly, he shows how the plots, themes, and characters of Tolkien’s beloved works can be traced to the patterns of the Church’s liturgical year.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"St. Paul Center","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52997884379433,"sku":null,"price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0931\/1076\/3817\/files\/Screenshot2026-04-16at1.10.58PM.png?v=1776360212","url":"https:\/\/littleflowercatholicshop.myshopify.com\/products\/the-high-hallow","provider":"Little Flower Catholic Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}