Timeliness strikes again!

I just happened upon a blog (Standing on My Head) which has captured my attention with another quotation from Tolkien on the Blessed Sacrament, one which has struck a rather acute note with me:

"The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children - from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn - open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand - after which [our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)"

The Blessed Sacrament...

Tomorrow morning's Mass will mark the commissioning of new students to assist with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in various roles-- myself as a sacristan, altar server, and extraordinary minister (it's been a busy week).  In light of the last  item of the list, you can imagine how timely I found the following quote, which I came across at the Catholic Education Resource Center after it first caught my eye some months ago:

"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, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth. . . by. . . which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained and take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

It's still more fitting in light of the fact that I'm currently making my way through the latter half of our good man Tolkien's The Two Towers.  They're certainly words worth bearing in mind as I both learn to distribute the Blessed Sacrament and continue my reading of The Lord of the Rings.