We finish up the first full week of Lent Madness with a match-up between a 17th-century priest and poet and a young, early 4th-century martyr. John Donne made it into the official bracket by defeating T.S. Eliot in the final play-in round known as the Great Poetry Slam. By winning that battle, Donne proclaimed to the world that he would not be, in the parlance of March Madness, "one and Donne."
Yesterday, in the biggest blow-out to date, Hilda of Whitby crushed Samuel Seabury to advance to the Round of the Saintly Sixteen. The only drama of the day was whether Hilda would be able to attain the magic blowout number of 80% of the vote. Samuel Seabury was able to stave off ignominy in this regard but still lost 79% to 21%.
Oh, and the other intrigue yesterday was whether we'd be able to make it to 1,000 followers on Twitter. As of this very moment @LentMadness stands at 989 followers (or, as we prefer to call them, "disciples"). Big (undetermined!) prize for our 1,000th follow.
John Donne
Rarely do great preachers, gifted writers, and esteemed Deans of Cathedrals begin life as poetic rakes who end up in prison.
Or maybe great preachers are great because they lived a life of passion, complexity, and redemption. John Donne certainly did. He was born to a Roman Catholic family, but struggled with his faith in his early life before converting to Anglicanism. He attended several institutions of higher learning without attaining a degree, womanized ladies in courts all over Europe, lived off the wealth of patrons, and wrote poetry. He was spiritual but not religious...and wrote poetry. His poetry was ground-breaking literature of the day with its images and ideas that connected seemingly unrelated things together like a parasite and sex (The Flea).
Donne eventually began a promising political career. His intelligence and charm opened doors, and he sat in Elizabeth’s last Parliament. Until he followed his heart and married Ann More -- a marriage that was opposed by all parties except the woman and man to be married. They married. Donne got sacked and landed in prison...along with the priest who married them. He was eventually released from prison, and he and Ann, by all accounts, lived happily married until her death.
As Donne’s life became more settled, his questions of faith became more complex. His poetry during this time spoke to the intricacies of human nature and the demands of the Gospel. He also wrote satire, pointedly observing the hypocrisy of government and church practices. He challenged Christians to think for themselves, not blindly to believe what someone in authority told them. He writes (translated slightly), “You won’t be saved on the Day of Judgement by saying Harry or Martin told you to believe this. God wants to know what YOU thought and believed.”
King James wanted him to become a priest so badly that he declared to all of England that Donne could not be hired except in the church. Donne was ordained in 1615 and soon became known as a great preacher in an age of great preachers, in an era of the Anglican church when preaching was a form of spiritual devotion, an intellectual exercise, and dramatic entertainment.
Donne’s legacy of poetry; of life lived fully and recklessly, with forgiveness and redemption; a life lived in the freedom of human passion and the obedience of devotion to the Gospel; and a life of questioning faith are all great legacies. Perhaps, though, in his own writing, his legacy of community is his greatest. Donne recognized that there is no belonging to a faith community without truly belonging. We are all connected in God one to another. As he writes, “All that she [the Church] does belongs to all.... Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
One Lord, one faith, one baptism. We are all one in God. Amen and Amen.
Collect for John Donne
Almighty God, the root and fountain of all being: Open our eyes to see, with your servant John Donne, that whatever has any being is a mirror in which we may behold you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-- Laurie Brock
Agnes of Rome
Agnes was one of the early martyrs of the church whose story of faith and perseverance through persecution continues to inspire us today.
Agnes was a victim of one of the random persecutions in Rome that occurred during the first three centuries of Christianity. In the year 304, Diocletian, one of the most brutal and thorough of Roman emperors, launched a round of persecutions aimed at totally wiping out Christianity.
Agnes’ name means ‘pure’ in Greek, and ‘lamb’ in Latin, so perhaps she was destined for her fate, which she met when she was only 12-years-old.
Tradition tells us Agnes was born to Roman nobility in 291 and raised in a Christian family. Apparently a pagan prefect named Sempronius wished to have Agnes marry his son, but she refused. This decision condemned her to death.
However, Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins. So Sempronius had Agnes dragged through the streets naked to a brothel. There are legends that say on the way to the brothel Agnes prayed, grew hair all over her body, thus clothing her. Then, at the brothel, God continued to protect her: any man who attempted to rape her was struck blind. Agnes was finally led out to a stake to be burned, but the wood would not catch fire. That’s when the officer in charged killed her with a sword.
A few days after Agnes' death, a girl named Emerentiana was found praying by her tomb. This girl claimed to be the daughter of Agnes' wet nurse, thus her foster sister. Emerentiana refused to leave the place, and reprimanded the pagans for killing Agnes. She was stoned to death and later canonized.
Today, Agnes' bones are conserved in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome, which is built over the catacomb that housed Agnes' tomb. Her skull is preserved in a side chapel in the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in Rome's Piazza Navona.
The anniversary of Agnes’ martyrdom is marked on January 21. She is regarded as the patron saint of young, unmarried girls. In fact, there is a folk belief that if a girl goes to bed without dinner on the eve of St. Agnes’ Day, she will dream that night about her husband to be.
Collect for Agnes of Rome
Almighty and everlasting God, you choose those whom the world deems powerless to put the powerful to shame: Grant us so to cherish the memory of your youthful martyr Agnes, that we may share her pure and steadfast faith in you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-- Chris Yaw
Vote!
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187 comments on “John Donne vs. Agnes of Rome”
"Agnes' story is hard to believe”; tells the tale even today. If it's not a man giving up his life for his faith then it is in question. The story is still to true even today; the girl child born has less value! Too many examples can be found in our even in the churches that see her as a saint - most of the Anglicans and all of the Roman faiths cannot give women the value of Priest.
Vote for Donne! This is a man who could write a love poem, albeit not your Valentine's Day sonnet:
"Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee."
Wow!
Look up the word ravish and see the irony in that poem in relatio to this "fun" contest.
I imagine that John Donne will win in a landslide and his richly complex/complicated life certainly merits it. But I am casting my vote for Agnes in the spirit of One Billion Rising, a movement focussed on preventing violence against women. I hope those who read this comment will urge their representatives to pass the Violence Against Women Act 2013.
I did not know who John Donne was until the play-in round. I have never considered myself someone that is cultured enough to appreciate poetry, unless you are talking about those limericks on Wait Wait, perhaps. But, after realizing that John Donne write things that even I have heard of, and especially that wonderful couple of lines from the Burial 1 service, which was Laurie's reason #7 for voting from him (in the play-in round), I have to vote for him again.
It is amazing to me the passion with which the LM community has embraced this particular contest. The story of Agnes is so painful. It is really hard to pass a martyr by, particularly a 12 year old innocent; but I cannot not vote for John Donne. Understanding myself to be a sinner of no small scale, I have loved his words for their power and their almost comical honesty. Dunn votes Donne.
While Agnes' story is certainly inspiring (even if somewhat exaggerated) Donne continues to speak directly to us in his poems and his prose, especially the sermons. The poem which struck me the most when I was studying his work is "Good Friday 1613, Riding Westward" (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/goodfriday.htm)
which, I am sure, records a key element in the process which brought him back from agnosticism to faith. And, if there really is "be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance." then Donne's repentance after a misspent youth must have created huge bursts of of in heaven and a great sign of hope for us.
Since the current vote suggests that we shall not get any good Agnes trivia, let me fill the gap with this. As noted above her name means 'lamb' (actually more accurately it is a pun on agnus, lamb) so appropriately, on her feast day (Jan 21) two lambs are brought to her titular church where they are blessed by the pope -- then on the following Maundy Thursday they are shorn, and the wool used to weave pallia to be given to newly created archbishops.
Agnes.
I kept having flashbacks all day to that bizarro 1980's movie, "Agnes of God".....
Made me wonder where the swashbuckling movie about John Donne is??? He's got it all... romance, church, disobedience, fame ..... and lovely poetry thrown in for culture. Hmm..... Benedict Cumberbatch, anyone?
Certainly the Church of Rome would never consider Donne a saint, which is one good reason I voted for him.
A postscript to this round, perhaps: When Donne has won, Donne is not done, for he'll have more.
Some of our readers are taking this awfully seriously! The pairing of "dissimilars" - saints in this case, but words and images in the case of metaphysical poetry - seems to me part of the peculiar and provocative charm of Lent Madness. I look forward to more unlikely pairings, difficult as they may make voting.
Agnes! "All the Single Ladies!!!!"
Some comments here have painted Donne as a "slacker," attending universities but failing to take degrees. In his time, and well into the century before last, no one could receive a degree who refused to swear the Oath of Supremacy, recognizing the English monarch as Supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England. As a Roman Catholic, he had the choice of committing perjury by swearing falsely (a no-no, according to the Ten Commandments) or "going down" (leaving the university) without a degree. Later in the same century as Donne, Sir Isaac Newton nearly lost his teaching position at Cambridge because as a Unitarian, he could not in good conscience sign the Thirty-Nine Articles; he got by, presumably with a little help from his more pragmatic friends. By the Nineteenth Century people had worked out more ways of accommodating this relic of earlier religious wars. Irish Catholic MP's met the canonical requirement of receiving the Sacrament from Anglican clergy thrice yearly and were routinely granted absolution for doing so by their Catholic priests of their parishes. Of course their wives and children did not share in these acts of "occasional conformity." To Americans all this may sound like rank hypocrisy (it's easy to call others hypocrites when you live under the protection of the First Amendment), but it is very much in the spirit of the Elizabethan Settlement; that wise monarch is on record as not caring to make windows into men's hearts.
I didn't realise Agnes was so young (12), she was certainly very brave to say no to a patriarchal society that expected the young girl to just 'do as she was told'. To drag her to a brothel naked, shame upon shame for the young girl. To die for what she believed in , she gets my vote. Now I am well and truly Donne!
Tom et al,
I have noticed that my daily emails from LM seem to be later than others in my church. Today I completely missed being able to vote in the John Donne-Agnes round as it came into my email at 1:14 am on Saturday.
Is there something I need to do to get in better time?
Jenks Hobson
ps Have you seen the Pope Madness 2013 take off on your creation?
Agnes rallied more than I thought she would against such a heavy hitter! Guess it just goes to show that the myth of the sacrificial virgin is still alive and well; still trying to influence young girls to be proper, chased and well behaved.
Chased but chaste.
Can't speak for others but that's not why I voted Agnes (see above). I would argue that Agnes was actually not especially proper and well-behaved, since her disobedience re marriage was what set the appalling subsequent events in motion. As for "chaste", that looks like a far better alternative to me than what others had in mind for her. To me the takeaway from the Agnes story is God's support for a strong-minded faithful young girl desperately (and appropriately!) trying to maintain her bodily integrity.
I don't begrudge Donne the win at all (great write-ups, great comments, & he's m'man in the 16) - but I am glad there was support for Agnes too.
"Criminy! Donne was a womanizer. Angnes the angel should have won by a landslide." , My 12 yo daughter states in protest. At least Lucy won 🙂
Ask not for who the vote tolls...
[...] week, I learned about Agnes of Rome who also was a virgin who was a victim of the Diocletian persecution. Also, like Lucy, prior to [...]