Welcome to Nominationtide! For one full week, the Supreme Executive Committee will be accepting nominations for Lent Madness 2017.

Please note that the ONLY way to nominate a saint is to leave a comment in this post. We will not accept nominations via social media, e-mail, carrier pigeon, brick through a window at Forward Movement headquarters, or singing telegram.

As you discern saints to nominate, please keep in mind that a number of saints are ineligible for next year’s “saintly smackdown.” This includes the entire field of Lent Madness 2016, those saints who made it to the Round of the Elate Eight in 2015 and 2014, and those from the 2013 Faithful Four. Below is a comprehensive list of ineligible saints. Please keep this in mind as you submit your nominations.

Also, note that the saints you nominate should be in the sanctoral calendar of one or more churches. When it comes to nominations, the SEC has seen it all over the years: people who are still alive, people who are not Christians, non-humans, etc. While these folks (and animals) may well be wonderful, they are not eligible for Lent Madness.

As always, we seek to put together a balanced bracket of saints ancient and modern, Biblical and ecclesiastical representing the breadth and diversity of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

And remember that when it comes to saints in Lent Madness, many are called yet few are chosen (by the SEC). So leave a comment below with your (eligible) nomination!

The Saints of Lent Madness 2016 (all ineligible)

Helena
Constance
Dominic
Clare
Vida Dutton Scudder
F.D. Maurice
Cyril
Methodius
Lawrence
Albert Schweitzer
Roch
Gertrude
Julian of Norwich
William Wilberforce
Meister Eckhart
Drogo
Columba
Kateri Tekakwith
Athanasius
Elmo
Barnabas
Frances Joseph-Gaudet
John Mason Neale
Sojourner Truth
Soren Kierkegaard
Christina Rossetti
Joseph
Matthias
Absalom Jones

Past Golden Halo Winners (ineligible)

George Herbert, C.S. Lewis, Mary Magdalene, Frances Perkins, Charles Wesley, Francis of Assisi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

From  2013 to 2015 (ineligible)

Thecla
Bernard Mizecki
Molly Brant
Frederick Douglass
Egeria
Brigid of Kildare
Kamehameha
Basil the Great
Lydia
Harriet Bedell
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Anna Cooper
Phillips Brooks
Julia Chester Emery
Hilda of Whitby
Luke
Oscar Romero

After the SEC culls through the hundreds of nominations at their annual spring retreat, the 2017 Bracket will be announced on All Brackets' Day (November 3rd).

In the meantime, we wish you all a joyous Nominationtide.