One for the Road: "Viaticum" and War

The death of Boromir is a poignant moment in one of the most ‘Catholic’ scenes in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. “He paused and his eyes closed wearily. After a moment he spake again. ‘Farewell, Aragorn. Go . . . . and save my people. I have failed.”

Elements of Viaticum (Last Rites in the Catholic Church) are identified in Boromir’s confession, absolution, penance; only the Eucharist is absent. Boromir was beyond any physical healing, however. So we see instead Aragorn’s most priestly function: a vessel of grace in the sacraments. Aragorn, true king and priest, was present and able to send Boromir on his journey with a clean heart and beautiful words . . . “you have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace!”

Serving with Australian Forces in Vietnam in 1967, a Protestant Padre* recollected the moment he went to the aid of a dying Digger during an assault (Operation Bribie); the soldier was one of eight who died in the five hours of fighting on that occasion. The Padre remembers his personal sense of “uselessness” holding the young National Serviceman in his arms, his frustration not being able to find suitable words of comfort. Retelling the story to his sons later, he still wondered at the value of the priestly function in the circumstances of war, or at all.

Tolkien’s fable is of course no match for the reality of actual war. That moment in Vietnam was a very different experience for the Padre without formulaic expressions at his disposal such as the ‘Last Rite’. The point is that some sort of assurance of eternal values is the ‘bottom line’, the best that can be offered to a dying person, and the only source of spiritual comfort; the lack of appropriate words being merely symptomatic of the deeper spiritual lack.

However, it is not hard to envisage a ‘de facto’ priestly function, words or no words: feeding the hungry, satisfying the thirsty, taking in the stranger, regardless of who such might happen to be, “the least of these my brethren” (referring to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25). The Gospel’s “in as much” principle leaves open the possibility of an inclusive, non-judgmental interpretation. Who are these “least brethren”? It is not for us to judge, but only to allow ourselves to become “vessels of grace”, priests in a practical, everyday sense.

“Hope” is the Scripture’s – and therefore Christian – key answer to the riddle of death. The martyrdom of Saint Polycarp (early 2^nd Century, Bishop of Smyrna) is described in a letter from the Church at Smyrna: “When he had said ‘Amen’, and finished the prayer, the officials at the pyre lit it. Surrounded by fire, his body was like bread that was baked or gold or silver white-hot in a furnace . . . a fragrance came to us like that of burning incense”.

At every moment of our lives, in all of life as in death, we are at the mercy of the hand of Almighty God. In the Roman Catholic Church the ‘Last Rite’ is known as the Viaticum, literally, "provision for a journey". Significantly, the holy Eucharist includes bread, food for a journey. Since what lies ahead is only known to God words alone are not enough, but a Christian theology/philosophy of death is not without a certain shape, certainly not without a hope in the providential gift of all that is necessary for the road ahead. In another scene from Tolkien there is an exchange between Pippin and Gandalf. Pippin says, “I didn’t think it would end this way.” “End?” replies Gandalf, “No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take.”

All this to an unbeliever is most likely complete nonsense, or “foolishness”, just as the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians (1:18). It is true that “Religion” may not always appear to make sense or offer much by way of practical help in life’s crises. It was not so for the Apostle Paul as for many millions of believers over the centuries: elsewhere in his writings (Romans 8: 38-39), and faced with his own martyrdom in Rome, Paul was able to say,  “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Regardless of who we are or our status in society, we all stand in need from time to time for the comfort of someone able to share our “moments”; as written in the Book of the prophet Jeremiah (10: 23): “I know the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct himself.” We need all the help we can get!

Perhaps we need also to accept that the hand of God is everywhere present, for it was God alone who knew in that moment during Operation Bribie what “food” the Padre’s presence alone might have had for the wounded Digger.

Geoff Wellings.

* The ‘Padre’ happens to be my brother, by the way.