Tolkien on The Resurrection as the Greatest Eucatastrophe

Happy Easter, my friends! I wanted to share this quote today from the Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, number 89:

“The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story–and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.” - JRR Tolkien

In this letter, Tolkien refers back to his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, in which he spoke more of this idea in the Epilogue. I shared about this on episode 26 of my podcast: On Fairy Stories and The Gospel as the Greatest Fairy-Story if you’d like to hear more!