Lembas Bread: Tolkien and Rowling on Sacramentality.

This is another example of the difference in "mode" between Tolkien and Rowling. It is also an example, though, of how not to read Tolkien as "Allegory." In the chapter "Mount Doom" Tolkien writes (on Lembas Bread): "and yet this waybread of the elves had a potency that increased as travelers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind." NOW, I will make a few bold statements. 1. The meaning of Lembas is NOT the Eucharist, strictly speaking. 2. The Eucharist IS however, the image source of Lembas. 3. The meaning of Lembas bread is Sacramentality as such. Of course, the most obvious aspect of the Eucharist as image source is the aspect of bread/food. But also there is the mention of potency increasing as it alone is relied on, and a number of Saints were reported to have survived receiving only the Eucharist. Sacramentality as such is focused on a physical thing being consecrated as somehow the vehicle of supernatural Grace. (In Baptism water remains water, it does not become, substantially, Grace. In the Eucharist the substance of bread and wine are actually changed into/replace by the substance of the Body and blood, while the accidents of bread and wine remain). Lembas is a physical thing [bread] which carries a non-physical power [virtue, courage, fortitude of will over body etc]. Were the meaning of Lembas to be the Eucharist itself, there would be, I think, at least some trace of a concept of sacrificial death, and of the communal/communion.) Rowling's work has also struck me as "Sacramental." Something like the Leaky Cauldron is small and unassuming, plain. In fact she even notes that most people never know it is there, they glance right over it unless they are particularly looking for it ... i.e., Muggles never see it. It is small and musty, dingy - like the mundaneness of physicallity. Yet it is a doorway to a world of wonder and magic, a world of larger meaning. In both authors I think there is a concept of "sacramentality." In Tolkien I think he is definitely conscious of being writing about sacramentality; I think he consciously uses that term in his head and that is why he consciously uses the Sacrament of the Eucharist as the image source. But what he is writing about is not specifically the Eucharist, but rather sacramentality as such. (obviously all of his work flows back to the Eucharist, as does all meaning in life period. I am merely talking of Lembas as a specific image within the construct of this work) It is in Rowling too. I'm not sure if she would use the term "sacramentality," but I am pretty sure it is what she means and that she does have an idea of where it comes from (i.e.,, I don't buy that she is a Wiccan ... the only official things I have heard is that she is Scottish Presbyterian [I think, don't quote me]. I don't know how "practicing" of a Christian she is but I do think from her works that she is conscious of where the meaning in life really comes from). The main point for me is that in neither author is it "allegorical." This is especially important for Tolkien because he is using the Eucharist as an image source. Were he doing so allegorically it would be like the "sacramental version" of an allegory of the Bible. In which case all that it would mean to say that "Tolkien writes more according to the Biblical mode and Rowling less, if at all" would be to say that "Tolkien is a Christian writer because he writes allegories of the Bible and Christian life; Rowling is not a Christian writer (and not good for Christians to read) because this is not what she does." Despite how long it might take me to figure out what I do think and how much even longer to get it in readable format ... it is not that.