For the second straight day we get a man named Thomas opposed by a saint with a fantastic name. In 24 hours we've gone from Merton to the Apostle; from Philander to Enmegahbowh. But, of course, in Lent Madness saints don't emerge victorious by fanciful names alone. Otherwise Engelbert Humperdinck would be canonized and win the Golden Halo.
Bracket Buster Alert! In one of the most hotly-contested battles to date, Philander Chase stormed past Thomas Merton late yesterday afternoon and never looked back. Despite a late surge by Merton, Chase held on to win 52% to 48% in record voting (2,711 votes cast) and commenting (142 comments). Spurred on by an army of Kenyon College alumni, this may go down as one of the greatest upsets in Lent Madness history.
Check in with the updated bracket and view the calendar of upcoming battles as we mark one full week of Lent Madness action.
Thomas, aka “Doubting” Thomas, aka “Didymus,” aka “The Twin,” is best known for wanting something more than his fellow-apostles’ word that Jesus had appeared to them in the flesh after he had been crucified. It could also be noted that Thomas was the only apostle to leave the house after Jesus’ crucifixion when everyone else was waiting inside with the doors locked out of fear. When Jesus returned to the house a second time, Thomas, despite his stated demands for hands-on proof, did not hesitate to call the resurrected Jesus “My Lord and my God!”
Thomas does not appear often in the gospels, but his few recorded words speak of someone willing to follow Jesus wherever he may go no matter the cost. When Jesus decided to visit Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus, despite the danger to himself, it is Thomas who says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” When Jesus tells the disciples during the Last Supper that he “will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going,” it is Thomas who says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
After the resurrection, Thomas’ willingness to follow Jesus evidently did not flag. Legend has it that he went to India where, after converting many people (and baptizing the three kings of the Nativity story), he was martyred by an angry king who had him run through with a sword. The church in India claims Thomas as its founder and patron saint to this day.
Collect for Thomas: Almighty and everliving God, who strengthened your apostle Thomas with sure and certain faith in your Son's resurrection: Grant us so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that our faith may never be found wanting in your sight; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
-- Laura Toepfer
Called the “Providential Man” by church historian Theodore Holcombe, Enmegahbowh, or John Johnson as he was known at his baptism, was the first Native American to be ordained a deacon and priest. Born about a day’s journey north of Toronto in c. 1820 Enmegahbowh, the son of a chief, was set apart as a healer from childhood. Indeed, his name means “the man who stands by his people.”
He learned to speak English when he journeyed to Minnesota as a translator for Methodist missionaries. However, like many of us, he was wooed to the Episcopal Church by the language after a chaplain at Fort Snelling presented him with a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. He began a correspondence with the missionary priest Dr. James Lloyd Breck and invited him to establish a mission in Gull Lake. Upon his arrival Enmegahbowh was baptized and, in 1859, he was ordained as a deacon. In these years he maintained a peaceful and courageous presence at the St. Columba’s Mission in the midst of great turmoil and violence among the white settlers and local Chippewa people.
In 1867 Bishop Henry Whipple ordained him to the priesthood and a year later he and his remarkable wife Biwabiko-geshig-equay (stay tuned for more on her in the next round if Enmegahbowh advances) moved - at the invitation of more than 100 chiefs and principal men of the tribe - to serve the people of the White Earth reservation. He died there after nearly 40 years of quiet ministry on June 12, 1902.
A tower of strength, constancy, and patience, “Enmegahbowh was a herald of all our Indian work;” wrote Holcombe in his 1902 biography of Breck. [He was] “the man who cried from the wilderness, ‘Come over and help us’, the man who opened the door for all that has since followed of God’s work for the Indians, even to the Pacific Coast.”
A Collect for Enmegahbowh: Almighty God, you led your pilgrim people of old with fire and cloud: Grant that the ministers of your Church, following the example of blessed Enmegahbowh, may stand before your holy people, leading them with fiery zeal and gentle humility. This we ask through Jesus, the Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.
-- Heidi Shott
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118 comments on “Thomas vs. Enmegahbowh”
I always think of Thomas when the Host is raised up during the Eucharist. I borrow and think it silently to myself Thomas' phrase, "My Lord and my God!". Thomas gets my vote, with all due respect to the good Father Enmegahbowh.
The children's missal that I received for my first communion went through the mass with a picture of what the priest was doing on one page, and words of prayer or explanation on the facing page. The only thing I remember from it is that, the picture that showed the moment of elevation of the host, had Thomas' words, My Lord and My God, and nothing else, on the facing page.
Ooh! I tied it up! As much as I love Enmeagabowh's name, I have to vote for Thomas. He reminds us daily that we need to believe, not to see.
And I managed to untie it. I love them both, and I respect them both. I ended up voting for Thomas, because his doubt AND steadfastness both speak to me. Even if I do want to know more about Enmeagabowh's wife.
I'm voting for Emmegabowh. Thomas gets enough press already, and E deserves more recognition.
Voted for Thomas. Simple as that. My favorite of the 12.
Aren't we all Thomas's at different points in our lives? He got my vote today!
I'm from Missouri the "Show-Me" state. Gotta go with Thomas. But I love learning about Enmegahbowh!! Do we have a phonetic pronunciation of his name?
Ever since one of our deacons preached it as "Blessed Thomas," I have trouble thinking of him any other way. Which is great. But despite my fondness for him, my ability to relate to his desire to question and seek more, and how amazing he was, Enmegahbowh gets my vote. Why? Because of being a forerunner, which I can also relate to, and for being such an icon of the power of love and the Holy Spirit in the midst of turmoil - something our present world needs a lot more of.
After the past few days...and especially yesterday, I've decided that the name "Lent Madness" is no exaggeration at all.
Praise God February 29th occurs only once every four years. Merton bounced? Yesterday was pure madness.
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After agonizing over yesterday's choice, this is fairly simple -- though not easy -- for me. I love Thomas. But several things strike me about Enmegahbowh: he came to Anglicanism through the language, and he was clearly, as much as Thomas, a person who questioned. He questioned cultures, he questioned assumptions, he, too, was a man whose faith was built not on complacent surety but on questions. And he worked tirelessly against violence (whites against tribes and tribes against whites). To the best of my limited knowledge, he wasn't someone who ever tried to force people to fit a mold, of culture or belief. And it must, as someone else said, have meant something to First Nations people to see him as priest. A man about respect and love and Holy Spirit? He's got my vote!
I love that Thomas isn't certain, I love that he has the courage to ask, I love that he doesn't just rely on what the others are telling him, and I love that Jesus is patient with him and gives him what he needs. Truth is not the same as certainty; certainty is not the same as being right. Thomas' willingness to seek information, yet to stay on the path without knowing where it led, trusting that he will find his way along that path better through honoring his doubts and not being ashamed of them is something that I find very powerful. I hate when people know I don't know something; I struggle with asking for help. To ask the risen Jesus "let me touch you" -- the boldness and the trust that displays is humbling, and the answer he receives is immensely comforting to me.
And Enmegahbowh looks like such a darling, kind, gentle man in his picture - I would invite him and his wife to dinner any day of the week. That is not something I would say about a lot of saints, even the ones I greatly admire.
A contest that pits one of the original 12 with the first Indigenous Episcopal Priest is, in my mind, like the Heat playing the Bobcats. But seeing the score my bet is on Enmegahbowh. I always love hearing the Thomas story when it comes around in the Lectionary but after working with the Ojibwe these last five years I have to say that Enmegahbowh is "The Man."
Well said!
Another tough one. "The world is filled with the saints of God who love to do Jesus' will" - Hymn 293
I want to hear more about E and his wife, but I had to go with Thomas even if he does already have his own day.
As a scientist, Thomas speaks to me deeply. But Enmegahbowh's "peaceful and courageous presence" in the midst of violence gets my vote.
Just looked up E's wife and found very little initially. It appears that the translation of her name is Iron Sky Woman. Just throwing that out there...
Argh! Another impossible choice.
Thank you, Mainecelt, for your comments addressing things I wonder about too. I'm going to trust your research. 'Course, if you're leading me astray it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea...but I trust you. No pressure.
Thanks also to all the folks who've pointed out that Thomas' life and witness are already recognized and honoured by the church, whereas Enmegahbowh deserves to be more widely known. You've helped me make an impossible choice.
I love Thomas - I named a son after him.
I'm voting for Enmegahbowh.
"John Johnson"--really?!
But Enmegahbowh served God--
and us--anyway.
As another doubting believer, Thomas tells me it's OK to be like that and gets my vote. Anyway my Thomas got beaten yesterday....
What Joan said: "and for being such an icon of the power of love and the Holy Spirit in the midst of turmoil – something our present world needs a lot more of."
I find it rather unseemly that you have included in this game someone who is a New Testament saint and whose feast has been a red-letter day since 1549, and is thus to be honored by all who profess to follow the discipline of the Book of Common Prayer.
Why "unseemly"? PLEASE elucidate.
Just because I have caught walleye on Gull Lake. Thomas gets his due throughout the church calendar anyway.
Enmegahbowh has a feast day, also, doesn't he? June 12, unless the GC took it away. I am voting for Thomas, gotta love the doubters, as well as the rocks.
Thomas is surely a saint every Christian can identify with, a role model to inspire us all. We struggle with our doubts in darkness and hard times, but in the presence of Jesus we say "My Lord and my God!" To not vote for this humble, human, spirit-filled man because he has a red-letter day on the Church calendar - just what is the logic of that?
Enmegahbowh took the day here with my little people, without a great deal of commentary. I was surprised, since one child has Thomas in his name... but both voted resoundingly for Enmegahbowh. I was a bit torn, myself.
Is there a post somewhere about how the match-ups were determined? I got some questions about that today.
Too many ties to Minnesota and too much knowlege of the continuing good work the Native American churches do in the upper middle west to vote for anyone other than Enmegahbowh!
Although I think Thomas is one of the most profound disciples alongside Peter because of his confessions of faith, I had to vote for Enmegahbowh today because I was ordained on his feast day.
Dr. Primrose said it all.
And I know nothing about his wife and I want to learn more about her in the next round.
After the devestating loss of Merton, I am taking a different path here.. Go Enmegahbowh!
I don't need to know his words. The fact that his people considered him a healer is enough for me. Thomas has been a model for me since my teenage years, and I'm thinking he would approve a vote for John Johnson Enmegahbowh, the one who stands by his people.