Did you ever think you'd utter the phrase "Thank God It's Lent?" Well, thanks to today's kick-off of Lent Madness 2013, you'll probably be hearing people saying "T.G.I.L." all day. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised to see a restaurant chain spring up called T.G.I. Lent's.
In any case, we're delighted to welcome you to this year's Saintly Smackdown with a First Round battle between Jonathan Daniels and Macrina the Younger. Yes, it's a martyred 20th century civil rights advocate versus a 4th century teacher and monastic. Such is the "madness" of Lent Madness.
If you're new to Lent Madness, welcome! You may want to check out the Voting 101 video if you have any questions. Be sure to sign up for e-mail updates on our home page so you never miss a vote, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and encourage your friends to jump into the fray. While you are on our Facebook page today, please "Check In" to Lent Madness so all your friends will know you have gone to Lent Madness.
We can assure you this will be a wild, joyful, educational, ocassionally gut-wrenching ride. Let the madness begin!
Jonathan Myrick Daniels
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a second-year student at the Episcopal Theological School (ETS, now EDS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, watched as television newscasts showed Alabama State Troopers beating and tear-gassing civil rights marchers as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The next day, Martin Luther King, Jr. called for white clergy from the North and people of good will to stand with the protesters. Daniels and 10 other ETS students answered the call, flying to Atlanta and arriving late Monday night.
After traveling by bus from Atlanta to Selma, on Tuesday, March 9, Daniels and about 2,500 others participated in the second march to the Pettus Bridge and back. Later that day, three white ministers who had come for the march were beaten, one of them (who had traveled from Boston on the same flight as Daniels) dying two days later.
At the end of the weekend, Daniels and fellow seminarian Judith Upham missed the bus that would take them back to Atlanta and on to seminary. As they watched many of the white protesters leave, Daniels and Upham began to feel it wouldn’t be right to abandon those left in the struggle. Returning to ETS, they petitioned the seminary to let them go back to Selma for the semester.
Daniels and Upham returned to Selma on March 21 and joined the final march to Montgomery. Staying with a local family, they “just hung around, doing what we could to help,” according to Upham, including tutoring children, registering voters, and integrating St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
After taking his finals in Cambridge, Daniels returned to Alabama for the summer. On August 13, after picketing a whites-only store in Fort Deposit, Daniels and around 30 other protesters were arrested and jailed in Hayneville. Released a week later with no transportation back to Selma, Daniels, 17-year-old Ruby Sales and two others went to Varner’s Cash Store for Coca-Cola where they were confronted by an unpaid special deputy with a shotgun. The deputy threatened the group and took aim at Ruby Sales. Pushing Ruby out of the way, Daniels took the full brunt of the shotgun blast and died instantly. He was 26.
Ruby Sales, who was saved by Daniels’ actions that day, went on to attend EDS and founded the SpiritHouse Project and the Jonathan Daniels and Samuel Younge Institute. Judith Upham became a priest in 1977 and still serves at St. Alban’s, Arlington, TX. The Diocese of Alabama hosts a yearly pilgrimage to Hayneville in honor of Jonathan Myrick Daniels and the Martyrs of Alabama. In addition, Daniels’ alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute, has established a humanitarian award in his honor.
Collect for Jonathan Daniels
O God of justice and compassion, you put down the proud and the mighty from their place, and lift up the poor and afflicted: We give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another; and we pray that we, following his example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ the just one: who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Macrina the Younger
Macrina the Younger (to distinguish her from her granny, Macrina the Elder, in a time before surnames) was the oldest child of a wealthy Christian family in Caesarea, Cappadocia, in the Roman Empire. She was educated in Holy Scriptures, and had a particular interest in the Psalter and the Wisdom of Solomon and focused on ethics in the Bible. When her betrothed died (she was to be married at the ripe old age of 12), she decided to dedicate herself to a journey into Christian wisdom. Her theology, known to us through the writings of her brother Gregory, reminds us that a Christian’s journey is not an inconvenience simply to get to the destination; the journey is the joy itself, filled with the wealth of relationships good and bad, mistakes, successes, and moments that take our breath away and moments that leave us in tears. For Macrina, the journey with Christ is the destination.
Macrina’s journey may not have left us speeches, writings, or sermons, but her life was preached in a breathtaking way through her relationships. Two of her brothers, Gregory and Basil, became two-thirds of the Cappadocian Fathers, men who helped finalize the Nicene Creed and gave words to the great mystery of the Christian faith. Gregory and Basil were bishops, as well as another brother Peter, in part from their sister who refused to let them believe their own hype. She reminded them that Christian faith demanded humility, dedication, and service. She told Gregory his fame had nothing to do with his own merit, and when Basil returned from a successful preaching tour with the big head, we are told she dressed him down considerably (or, as we say in the South, took him out to the veranda for a talking to). She served as an example for Basil and Peter, who followed their sister’s lead and renounced material wealth and focused their education on theology and Holy Scripture. While her brothers may have been early church rock stars, Macrina frequently challenged them on their theology, spiritual practices, and opinions and often, they realized she was right.
She also converted her family’s large, wealthy estate in Pontus to a monastery that cared for the poor and provided a safe, peaceful shelter for study and meditation for women and men alike. Many who lived, studied, and prayed in her monastery were starving women she would find while walking on the roads around the city. Basil and Peter used her life as a monastic to write a Rule for community life; therefore, Macrina became the spiritual mother of monasticism.
Gregory of Nyssa visited his sister as she lay dying and later shared her last words, a mixture of a Greek farewell oration and reflections on Holy Scripture, in his writings. One of the great fathers of Christian theology, Gregory of Nyssa (a saint), and one of the great fathers of Christian spirituality, Basil the Great (a saint, too), called this woman, their sister, the greatest teacher of the faith they ever encountered. Macrina, in her faith, her intelligence, her deep humility, lived a gentle life, and the elements of strength, love, and mercy so mixed in her that the great Fathers of our faith would say to all the world, “This was a woman.”
Collect for Macrina the Younger
Merciful God, you called your servant Macrina to reveal in her life and her teaching the riches of your grace and truth: May we, following her example, seek after your wisdom and live according to her way; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-- Laurie Brock
Vote!
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148 comments on “Jonathan Daniels vs. Macrina the Younger”
They were both wonderful people, who were showing people Jesus Christ in themselves and through their living. They both shared their lives with people and both cared for people. I found it hard to pick one over the other. To give your life for another at any age is a loud statement that God is Love and Love conquers all.(Read Romans-8:37-39). I finally picked Jonathan.
I personally wanted to vote for Macrina, but the majority of my 6th and 7th grade students voted for Jonathan Daniels, so I entered our vote for Daniels. I guess 11 and 12 year olds can relate more to civil rights than to monasticism.
It is a difficult choice. Clearly Jonathan Daniels is relevant to modern America. But Macrina and her brothers have shaped the whole of Christian thought about who we are and who God is. On longevity, I would have to give it to Macrina,
I knew Judy Upham, I attended her ordination
I hear his seminary dean talk about Jonathan
I marched on the legal march, first day
I heard all the details from the last person to see Jon except Ruby, he vistied him in jail.
Two wonderful saints, two superb write-ups, too hard to decide. I want to vote for both.
So...I am going to vote for Macrina now. Current results suggest that I'll have the opportunity to vote for Jonathan later.
I am teaching Gregory's Life of Macrina in Greek class this quarter. During a famine in Asia Minor, Macrina rescued female infants who had been abandoned by their families along the main roads and raised them in her own house. Macrina for me!
Macrina for me! Such maturity at such a young age. Amazing that her brothers are so well known yet, she, who had such a significant role in their spiritual formation, is a relatively unknown. And, Laurie, (Gregory of Nyssa visited his sister as she lay dying and later shared her last words, a mixture of a Greek farewell oration and reflections on Holy Scripture, in his writings.) you 'must' share those last words with us.
Such different lives. Such exquisite examples of Christian love and fortitude. Voting for Macrina. Contemplatives never do well in this competition and I understand that. So I'm making just a small gesture to this life.
Love how many votes there are already! Great work, everybody.
Too, too tough, and I had to just close my eyes and click on a choice here. But on to something easier: I vote that Souplantation, a big chain 'eatery' here in the West, with its mostly healthy, but uncompelling, cuisine, and its half-hearted attempt at "dessert," be renamed TGI Lent.
Thank G-d I am a Diocese of NH priest, which swayed my vote to Jon. Otherwise, this would have been a toughie.
Truly, this is a win/win round.
Sorry although martyrdom is an admirable trait, I had to go with Macrina for the very fact women were second class citizens at best, but she persevered and was a guiding hand to my religion. Without her Jon may never had the chance to martyr himself.
I lived in Alabama during these terrible days. To a child from New York it was a very confusing and terrible time. My mother was the head librarian in Jackson, Mississippi when they brought the dogs in. The staff had locked her in a closet because her position was that there was no reason any citizen should be denied access to the library. Clearly I have to give my vote for Jonathan! Thank God for him and all those who suffered and even died to wake up our country in those terrible days.
I was ready to vote for my man Jon, but was moved by Macrina's contribution to the whole of Christendom. Macrina good luck to you. This was a toughie!!
Gotta put in a plug for the monastic and teacher, Macrina. Great, thought-provoking start to Lent Madness!
I had to vote for Jonathan Daniels in honor and memory of all those who fought that particular good fight. But it's good to learn about Macrina--what a model for those of us who've been in a situation where we've been unfairly sidelines!
There are going to be lots of hard choices. As much as I admire Macrina, though, I have to go with Jonathan.
Jonathan Daniels brings us a view of a modern saint who heard the call of
God in his life and found a way to answer it. May more of us listen this lent
to hear God's call for our heart, our soul and our body to bring God's vision
to the whole world.
Voting for Jonathan, because he is not only a modern saint, but an Episcopal saint.
Having been a college student at the University of Alabama during the civil rights movement, I know first hand the courage and commitment that it took for Jonathan Daniels to make such a stand. I have been anxiously awaiting the day to cast my vote for him!
I was with Jonathan Daniels all the way; then I read about Macrina. Both did great things; but I had to remember the time she was living in and what she taught us. I think we are still learning from her actions.
Macrina kept her brothers focused on the message, rather than the self. She used her wealth to house the destitute, the ill, and the abandoned. She influenced the direction of the early church---east & west. She gets my vote.
But, I cried remembering Jonathan Daniels.
Really not nice of you to put Jim and Macrina up against each other in the very first round; both should have had a better chance to go farther; but then people who promote papist purple instead of proper Anglican Lenten Array will probably do anything!
And, BTW, Valentine may or may not belong in the Calendar or in Lent Madness, but my wife and I have seen his relics in Rome (oddly enough in the Greek Rite Church there), we we KNOW that he was real.
My first time with Lentmadness. I am so impressed with your choice of candidates and also the thoughtfull reasons for most of those who responded..I tend to agree with many of these folk. My choice is for Macrina a wise young woman, whose faith matured and in her humility she became so great an influence on her brothers, the bishops. A Saint by all measures. I am glad to learn about her life and devotion to Christ our Lord.
Well, it looks as if this year's LM will be exciting indeed. I only remember hearing about Macrina very briefly in the past. She was impressive. But my vote must go to Jonathan Daniels.
The whole Waker-Keenan clan casts our vote for Jonathan Daniels.
I am not an American, and I am horrified that Jonathon's life is such recent history. Yes, he was a good man, doing what saints usually do - the ordinary in a Godly way.
BUT
Macrina made me cry. She is SO inspirational. Seems unfair that she is losing votes for not being "local" or recent.
Go Macrina!
OMStars...how can you do this??? To have to choose between Jonathan who was martyred here in Alabama and a woman (of whom I had never heard!) whose life and ministry is such a witness to faith and feminine spirituality!!!
I'm afraid Home town advantage wins the day......
Voting for Macrina (whose story I love, whose witness and theological acumen I value highly), though heart-torn as I am usually in awe of the martyrs...I think I'll have another chance to vite for Jonathan. What a way to begin Lent Madness!
My unanimous vote went to Macrina who plainly helped her brothers with plain speaking and an exemplary life. Oh and she is a WOMAN with such faith and belief. What a great start to this Lent Madness.
Wow! Thanks for the reflective start to Lent Madness.