MetaCatholic

Back when I reviewed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a few days after publication, I ended by focusing on the importance of the scripture quotations in the churchyard at Godric’s Hollow. I said:

Most interesting of all is the attention given to the headstones in the churchyard at Godric’s Hollow. On the Dumbledore family tomb is inscribed: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt 6:21). This serves in so many ways as a comment not only on Dumbledore’s situation, but in some way defines a major theme of the books. On the Potter family tomb is the quotation (already mentioned above) “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26). Again, this is a theme that re-emerges in several ways. The ensuing discussion between Harry and Hermione underscores this. In one sense it is exactly what Voldemort has always thought as he sought to master death. In another it is the willingness to enter into a life beyond death, and therefore to prepared to lay down one’s own life for another, making death not an enemy but a friend, to accept that it cannot be mastered, and that fear of death can destroy life.

Now, in an interview reported on MTV, Jo Rowling says:

“They’re very British books, so on a very practical note Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones,” Rowling explained. “[But] I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones at Godric’s Hollow, they sum up — they almost epitomize the whole series.”

I’ve failed to convince some of those so bedazzled by mention of witches and wizards that they could see no Christian themes at all, but perhaps this author’s statement will help.

Or, in other words, “I was right, you were wrong, na, na, na-na-na.”