We've lived through enough moments of great upheaval to recognize that heroics have little to do with who’s charging headfirst into battle or basking in the glow of glory. In reality, our cultural understanding of heroics has grown past that of myths and legends. And it's been hard to parse that sense of self when it feels it can never amount to that Herculean expectation of striving, succeeding, and winning-doing it all with an ironclad conviction.

I am-and always have been-sensitive, gentle in temperament, and prone to setting aside ambition to weigh doing well with doing good. He took a deep breath and started off.If you were to conjure up a mental image of a heroic figure, whatever surefooted warrior you concocted would likely bear little to no resemblance (physical or otherwise) to someone like me. Whether because Frodo was so worn by his long pains, wound of knife, and venomous sting, and sorrow, fear, and homeless wandering, or because some gift of final strength was given to him, Sam lifted Frodo with no more difficulty than if he were carrying a hobbit-child pig-a-back in some romp on the lawns or hayfields of the Shire. He had feared that he would have barely strength to lift his master alone, and beyond that he had expected to share in the dreadful dragging weight of the accursed Ring. Just tell him where to go, and he’ll go.”Īs Frodo clung upon his back, arms loosely about his neck, legs clasped firmly under his arms, Sam staggered to his feet and then to his amazement he felt the burden light. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. Sam, in his turn, because he cannot carry the Ring himself, carried Frodo on his back with the Ring on Frodo’s neck: So the Roman asked Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross. And sometimes his right hand would creep to his breast, clutching, and then slowly, as the will recovered mastery, it would be withdrawn. Anxiously Sam had noted how his master’s left hand would often be raised as if to ward off a blow, or to screen his shrinking eyes from a dreadful Eye that sought to look in them. Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind. But it was the Ring that brought him much pain: He was speared by an Orc Captain, stabbed by a Nazgul blade on his shoulder, and bitten by Shelob.

Christ already suffered much before his carrying of the cross: he was scourged and crowned with thorns. I could not give it up, and if you tried to take it I should go mad.”īut neither Frodo nor Christ have the strength to carry their mission. It is my burden, and no one else can bear it. “My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!” (Mt 26:42)įrodo also refused Sam’s offer to carry the Ring in his behalf: Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: This shall surely be unless you accept my Lord’s terms.” (Black Gate Opens, Return of the King)Īt the end of the crucifixion, the criminals’s feet are broken, killing them.įrodo is resolved to carry the Ring to Mount Doom in the same way as Christ is resolved to carry the cross to Mount Calvary.

Or else his errand was one that you did not wish to fail? And now he shall endure the slow torment of years, as long and slow as our arts in the Great Tower can contrive, and never be released, unless maybe when he is changed and broken, so that he may come to you and you shall see what you have done. On top is the cross–the sign of the most cruel persecution that the Roman Empire devised against its enemies–the slow painful death akin to what the Mouth of Sauron described of to Gandalf before the Black Gates:

Mount Doom is the volcano where the One Ring was forged by Sauron himself. Sam’s plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless miles could subdue. …But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Frodo to the last step and then die with him? Well, if that is the job, then I must do it.” “So that was the job I felt I had to do when I started,” thought Sam: “to help Mr. It begins with Sam’s realization of his mission: In the Lord of the Rings, the Chapter III of Return of the King depicts how Sam Gamgee helped Frodo carry the Ring to Mount Doom. The Fifth Station of the Cross: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus Carry His Cross:Īs they led him away they took hold of a certain Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country and after laying the cross on him, they made him carry it behind Jesus. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross

Sam carrying frodo