Nominations for next year’s field of 32 saints are currently being accepted by the Supreme Executive Committee.
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.
Inevitably, some will disagree with certain match-ups or be disappointed that their favorite saint didn’t end up in the official bracket. If you find yourself muttering invective against the SEC, we implore you to take a deep cleansing breath. Remember, there’s always Lent Madness 2029.
The 2013 bracket was the first time we included nominations from the Lent Madness faithful and a number of your suggestions made it in. While the SEC remains responsible for the formation of the final bracket, we encourage your participation in the nominating process.
That’s not to say the (usually) benevolent dictatorship that is the SEC is showing cracks in its junta-like Lenten power. The only time true democracy rears its ugly head in Lent Madness is during the actual voting. However, nominations from the floor mean that if you are unhappy with the 2014 bracket you can transfer your angst away from the SEC and toward one another. As for us, we can always blame the ancient Greeks.
We may have play-in rounds again this year, depending on where the mystical dove lands on our blank bracket as we discern which saints to include. Play-ins allows everyone to get a small foretaste of the Madness that is to come as eight saints vie for four spots in the official bracket on to-be-determined dates. On the other hand, play-ins cause endless confusion for those who are new to bracketology.
As you discern saints to nominate, please keep in mind that a number of saints are ineligible for next year’s “saintly smack down.” This includes the entire field of Lent Madness 2013, those saints who made it to the Round of the Elate Eight in 2012 and 2011, and those from the 2010 Faithful Four. Here is a comprehensive list of ineligible saints. Please keep this in mind as you submit your nominations -- which you can do by leaving a comment on this post.
Also, please note that the saints you nominate should be in the sanctoral calendar of one or more churches. Anglican calendars are a bonus, but we're open minded. To a point. Fred Rogers is not eligible, despite the royal pleas of King Friday XIII. If you are looking for lists of actual saints, you might check here, here, here, or here, among other places.
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 Field from 2013 (all ineligible)
Hilda of Whitby
Thomas Tallis
John Donne
Macrina the Younger
Martin Luther King, Jr.
T.S. Eliot
John Merbecke
Lucy
Nicholas Farrar
Jonathan Daniels
Martha of Bethany
Luke
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Gregory the Great
Frances Perkins
Dorothy Day
Ignatius of Loyola
Absalom Jones
Harriet Tubman
Oscar Romero
Damien of Molokai
Florence Li-Tim Oi
Janani Luwuum
Martin Luther
George Berkeley
Benedict of Nursia
Theresa of Lesieux
Anne
Ignatius of Antioch
Samuel Seabury
Chad of Lichfield
John the Baptist
Martin of Tours
Agnes of Rome
Edward Thomas Demby
Past Golden Halo Winners (ineligible)
George Herbert, C.S. Lewis, Mary Magalene, Frances Perkins
From 2010 -- 2012 (ineligible)
Emma of Hawaii
Margaret of Scotland
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Evelyn Underhill
Enmegahbowh
Jerome
Thomas Cranmer
Polycarp
Clare of Assisi
William Tyndale
Thomas Beckett
Constance
Perpetua
Vincent of Saragossa
Francis of Assisi
Julian of Norwich
Theresa of Avila
267 comments on “Nominations Open for 2014!”
I would like to nominate St Anslem.
I respectfully nominate Saint Maximillian Maria Kolbe
I would like to make two nominations-
Julian of Norwich-the first woman to write a book in English---Revelations of Divine Love, a book we would all do well to read a bit more of!
The second is Blessed Titus Brandsma. There are not too many Dutch saints, he was a Carmelite friar, a priest, a journalist, and died at Dachau.
Bless!
I'd like to nominate Mary Magdalene, the "Apostle to the Apostles."
Pauli Murray! Just added to Holy Men, Holy Women in 2012. First African American Woman to become an Episcopal priest and a civil rights champion.
Also, from my formerly Roman Catholic days, St. Rose Philippine Duchesne. Anyone who attended a school run by the Religious of the Sacred Heart could tell you all about her. 🙂
Theophan the Recluse.
Perpetua and Scholastica all the way!
I nominate St. Bede, father of English history.
Ralph Adams Cram
I nominate Charles and John Wesley for a battle of the Methodists. Both Anglican priests, one a hymnist, one a social activist, who will take the day?
I'd like to nominate John & Charles Wesley, who remained Episcopal priests as they built the theology for Methodism ~ and whose day on the Episcopal calendar is March 3!
Scholastica and Perpetua!
Good King Wencenslas for having the best Christmas song ever! I think I've nominated enough now! Can't wait for Lent!!!
Do they have to already be dead?
If not, I'd nominate +Katharine Jefferts Schori who inspires and leads us into mission and the reign of God in spite of opposition, poisen pen emails and the like!
St. John Bosco, founder of the Salesians. (Okay, I used to be a Roman...)
OK, as a (whispers hurriedly) current RC, may I please say that the fact that you have had Perpetua but not poor Felicity, is just wrong. I have literally never heard one mentioned without the other.... so here she is Felicity (BFF of Perpetua)
Saint Francis de Sales!
I would like to nominate Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky.
I nominate . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Seymour
I nominate Thomas Merton.
Catherine of Sienna
Thomas Merton
Christians Rosetti
Balthere of Tyninghame (later Baldred), a hermit and abbot. When he died three churches claimed his body and wouldn't share, There miraculously appeared three identical bodies, all in windings. The three churches were extremely happy to each have their own St. Baldred relics.
I nominate The Rev. Dr. James DeKoven (feast day - March 22, during Lent!) a theologian way ahead of his time. And a man who cared deeply for the church and her people.
I nominate, Ruth burrows, Edward Hays, Henri J. M. Nouwen, John of the Cross, and St Thomas the disciple.
Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS1aiAMWaz0
He ought to get a shot (oops) at the title.
I like the idea of singing that song in church.
I nominate St. Constance and her Companions, the martyrs of the Memphis yellow fever outbreak of the 1800s, St. Blandina an early Christian martyr from Gaul, and St. Stephen- my parish's patron saint.
I nominate Eglantine Jebb, founder of Save the children, who, the the ABC wouldn't listen went to the Pope. She drafted the first Declaration on the Rights of the Child. Remembered on 17th December so lost in the pre Christmas busyness.
Also
Columba
Adomnan
Hildegard
Anselm
Abelard and Heloise (must be some good kitsch there)
Walter Hilton
Thomas Traherne
Elizabeth I. Where would we be without the Elizabethan Settlement?
I nominate Verna Dozier!
I nominate Saint Timothy.
Yay for Timothy (for obvious reasons)!
i nominate st. valentine -just because.....