New this year, we are pleased to offer a brief Opening Ceremony video for Lent Madness. It might not involve a cast of thousands like the Olympics, but it does feature two dead archbishops introducing a true Episcopal celebrity wearing a purple cassock. See, we win!
Isn't it just "astonishing" how many people have been looking forward to the start of Lent? Isn't it just "great" that Lent Madness has finally begun? The Supreme Executive Committee has fired the starting gun (don't worry, it's metaphorical) and...we're off! The 2014 Saintly Smackdown has officially commenced.
So, hang onto your halos as we begin whittling down our field of 32 saints. All are worthy (yes, they have already received their respective crowns of glory) yet only one will attain the coveted Golden Halo. There will be debates, ire, angst, rejoicing, and holy trash talking. Just remember, it’s all in the spirit of this season specifically set aside to grow closer to God through our relationship with Jesus Christ. On behalf of the Lent Madness team, we’re delighted you’ve decided to spend some of this holy season with us.
If this is your first year playing Lent Madness, welcome. You're in for a fun, informative, engaging, occasionally wild, ride. (Looking for a Lent Madness primer? Click here). If you're back for more heart-stopping saintly thrills, it's good to see you!
After you vote we encourage you to do three things: First, like us on Facebook. Second, follow us on Twitter (if you just can't get enough of the Madness, social media is the perfect way to continue the conversation). Finally, visit the Lentorium where you can purchase ebook versions of the Saintly Scorecard: The Definitive Guide to Lent Madness 2014 and other Lent Madness paraphernalia such as mugs. Your hairdresser, local barista, cousin, etc. will be thrilled with such thoughtful and wholly unexpected gifts.
Make sure you watch LentMadnessTV regularly for updates from Archbishops Thomas Cranmer and John Chrysostom, as well as the Supreme Executive Committee. Each week you'll find a video about that week's match-ups. Here's a video about the competition of Ash Week.
P.S. Here's a Lent Madness "Pro Tip" -- if you want to receive all the daily match-ups in your e-mail inbox, we encourage you to go to the home page and "subscribe" by entering your e-mail address (near the top right). This will insure you never miss a vote!
Basil the Great
In the early years of Christianity, much of what we take for granted was in flux. Exact points of belief were the source of schism and argument. In the 4th century, one of the great controversies was Arianism, or the belief that Jesus was subordinate to God and was not created with God the Father, but at a later time; therefore, Jesus was distinct from God. The initial Council of Nicea addressed the issue, but the debate would not rest.
In the region of Cappadocia, particularly, the Arian controversy threatened to divide the region. One of the priests in the region, Basil, stepped firmly into the fray.
Basil was one of the three Cappadocian Fathers, three men who, along with their sister Macrina, profoundly influenced Christian orthodoxy in the 4th century. Basil was born into a family of wealth and privilege and educated in the classic Greek style of the era and the Christian faith. When his sister Macrina used her wealth and status to establish a monastery, Basil himself traveled in the area of Mesopotamia and lived the life of a solitary monastic. He soon shifted his interest to a community of faith rooted in prayer and work. Assisted by Gregory of Nazianzus, he wrote a monastic Rule, which would become the foundation for Eastern monastic discipline.
He retired to a life of monastic living and writing, but was called out of retirement to defend against the heresy of Arianism. Through his intellect, profound and deep faith, and no small amount of political savvy, Basil did just as he was asked. In his On the Holy Spirit, Basil wrote that both the words of Scripture and the traditions of the Church require that the same honor, glory, and worship are to be paid to God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For Basil, correct worship would include the formula, “Glory to the Father with the Son together with the Holy Spirit.”
Basil lived what he preached. He never allowed his concern for proper orthodox belief to distract from his focus and work for the poor. He, in his life and after his death through bequests, built homes, hospitals, churches, and other support agencies for the poor and outcasts.
Basil died in 379 at the age of fifty. Two years later, the Second Ecumenical Council affirmed the Nicene faith as understood and presented by Basil and his supporters - the very same words we affirm today in the Nicene Creed.
Collect for Basil the Great
Almighty God, you have revealed to your Church your eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like your bishop Basil of Caesarea, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for you live and reign forever and ever. Amen.
-- Laurie Brock
Christina the Astonishing (also known as Christina Miribilis)
In 1172, in St-Tronde (Belgium), the body of a twenty-something orphan named Christina was brought into church, surrounded by a priest, her sisters, and other mourners, for her funeral mass. After the Agnus Dei, Christina rose from her open coffin and levitated into the rafters, where she perched like a bird as all the mourners except for the priest and one sister fled, amazed.
Christina then came down and told what had happened to her while she was “dead.” Angels had guided her into a dark place where she saw many people she had known, in torment. This was Purgatory. Then she was taken to Hell, where she saw others suffering. Finally, she was taken to Heaven and given this choice: stay in Heaven, or return to earth to make penances for those in Hell and Purgatory, that they might be released; and suffer to convert the living, too.
She chose to return. And, she said, “my life will be astonishing, like nothing you have ever seen.”
Christina, the patron of both the mentally ill and therapists, embarked on a life of extreme behavior. She became homeless, dressed in rags, begging for food. During intense prayer, she threw herself into fiery furnaces or into the frozen river for days, emerging unscathed. She recoiled from human contact and often was found perched in treetops, towers, and other remote places, because the smell of human sin was too much for her.
Her family, thinking her possessed, once had her captured and her leg broken by a thug in an effort to control her. Then they called a doctor. And then Christina escaped.
Yet she lived out her last three years obediently at St Catherine’s Convent where locals -- saints, counts, villagers -- came to her for counsel and confession. She died in 1224 at the age of 74.
In addition to being immortalized in plays, poems, and a song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Christina’s original story was written down by a contemporary, Thomas de Cantimpre, a Belgian Dominican, based on eyewitness accounts from villagers and Cardinal Jaques de Vitry, who knew Christina. This astonishing woman was a great puzzle to everyone, who were never sure if she was a mystic or insane. Perhaps she was shattered by an encounter with the Divine.
She herself was convinced she was called to suffer for others, to be a different kind of witness. And that she was.
** Image of Christina the Astonishing by Cookie Scottorn. Used with permission.
Collect for Christina the Astonishing
Eternal God, in the example of Christina, we are reminded of the fine line between mysticism and mental illness. You gave to her a passionate spirit, a vivid mind, and the call to suffer for others. Through her example, may we be awakened to passionate and compassionate witness to your glory. In the name of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(Collect written by Nancy Hopkins-Greene.)
283 comments on “Basil the Great vs. Christina the Astonishing”
My first thought was, "How can I possibly vote for anyone named Christina?" However, as I read Penny Nash's description, I changed that thought to, "How can I possibly NOT vote for this Christina??!" So what if she was high-flying? Indeed, there is a thin line, at best, between mysticism and mental illness.
Thanks, Pam!
Brutal! Heart vs Brain matchup... Arrrgh, Lent Madness starts off with a fiendish choice
Wait'll we hit the Welseys....
Yes, just saw that match up ... madness indeed, pitting brother against brother.
Arrgh!
Basil for me because the Cappadocian Fathers (and sisters) rock but in a perichoretic way 🙂
I'm using the saints this year to think about where I need to grow. As a scholar, Basil is easy. Christina is hard, and reminds me of the need to see Christ in everyone.
Very much my own reaction!
I also think that in our day and age non-religious people often see those of us who are religious as being challenged by reason, or not quite as smart as we could be. I celebrate Basil, but Christina's is the harder witness.
People with a mental illness diagnosis are also capable of profound spiritual insights (see, Dark Night of the Soul).
I, too, expected to support the tried and true Basil but at the last minute Christina won my vote. The mentally ill and therapists both need a patron saint to sort out living every single day. The trinity is less important and was always a bizarre thing to fight over.
For those who stand on that thin line between mysticism and mental illness.
Modern science is now, more and more, beginning to study relationships between our understanding of physics and humans' mystical/religious experiences. As intriguing as the "answers", so far, are...there still remains to us a fine line between the nutcase and the saint. There may be a little of both in each of us.
Born into a time when she just as well might have been killed to spare those around her further "astonishment"...the fact that she lived into her 70's, and that townsfolk came forward willingly to attest to her, um, well, whatever it was she was doing...convinced me that she was probably the Real Thing. What KIND of thing? Haven't the foggiest. But Christina gets my vote this morning. God's ways are not our ways.
It is not clear how to vote to a newcomer. The "Vote" at the bottom of the two biographies should be a live link to the ballot.
My therapist needs all the patron saints she can get. As does every mental health professional I have ever known...how could I not vote for the patron saint who walked (levitated!?!?!) to the beat of a different drummer? 🙂
A vote for astonishing is the only way to begin Lent Madness!
I like Christina because of her help with the mentally ill. These marginalized people need much love and help.
My thoughts about God and my relationship with him continue to grow, expand and change as he reveals more of himself to me. It has pushed past so many of my earlier boundaries of concept, that I have stopped trying to define God with a hard line. I have a bit of a struggle with the Nicene Creed for these very reasons, and - I've seen some awesome, mystical things myself. I appreciate Basil and his contributions. I understand why it's necessary to fundamentally define a faith..... but then there are the mystical things God reveals. I vote for Christina...... God works in mysterious ways.
Here is a link to Nick Cave and the Bad Seed "singing" Christina the Astonishing. The song itself is more creepy than astonishing. Perhaps those listening to this additional burden Christina has had to bear will be encouraged to vote for her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ86DlemOWQ
Thanks for posting the video, Jane!
Hmm, I think you mean awful. And I say that as an Aussie. Yeesh.
They say there's a song for everything but couldn't find basil the Great lyrics anywhere so one more reason to stay with the astonishing.
Well, guys...'scuse me!...most noble SEC...you know how to start us off, don't you? I have to go with Basil, the tried and true, and the foundation for all we believe, especially after getting my ashes yesterday. Abby and Madeleine, congrats on being #1 and #2. I was nowhere near being awake then.
Since I run a free clinic for the poor, how could I not vote for Basil the Great? He rooted healthcare, especially to the poor, in Christian life by his founding of Basiliad. During St. Basil’s funeral, St. Gregory described it like this: “Go forth a little way from the city, and behold the New City, the storehouse of piety, the common treasury of the wealthy … where disease is regarded in a religious light, and disaster is thought a blessing, and sympathy is put to the test.” St. Basil made it clear to Christians that caring for the sick was our duty. To me, this is a greater and more pertinent legacy than any theological argument could be. Though, of course, you can argue that without the theology, the care and service would not have happened.
Thank you so much. I didn't know this. If I had, my obvious choice of Christina would have taken longer. As mush as I admire his work, we need more attention to the mentally ill and those who care for them. Keep up the good work Christina!
I too assumed I would be voting for Basil the Great, that is until I read about Christina the Astonishing whom I have never heard of before. Working with the homeless on the streets of my city she really hit home. God bless all of you out there who are committed to God's work with these children of God. You are blessed.
As a future social worker, I can't help but make Christina the Astonishing. Basil would have been my logical choice, but knowing people who suffer from mental illness, I am casting my vote for Christina.
Tough way to start! My birth saint vs. a beautiful story. My sympathy for Christina, but I gotta vote Basil.
I voted for Christina in honor of a young man in my parish who recognized himself in her. You rock, Chris! This vote is for you!
Christina has my vote! While hagiography is always a spotty in terms of hard facts, the hagiographies of women saints are regularly (or perhaps almost always) edited to fit into the confines of the (usually) male hagiographer's particular theological, political, and social biases and presuppositions. Since Christina sounds amazing even *after* her hagiographers fit her into their own mold of sanctity, I cannot imagine what sorts of wonderful things she actually did. For example, the hagiographers have the locals flocking to Christina for counsel and confession well into her 70s. If *that* made it through the hagiographical madness, imagine what was left out!
And at the end of the day, Basil and Christina, pray for us!
The Basil and the Trinity versus Christina and the Astonishing...I felt drawn to vote for Basil, however my instinct says to go with the mystical Christina. She had me at her quote, “my life will be astonishing, like nothing you have ever seen.” I too long for an astonishing life and believe that anything is possible. Her willingness to understand and council those mentally ill individuals is inspiring and most of the time a thankless job.
My vote won't stop loading. Don't know if I should leave the site. I certainly want my vote to count!
How could a therapist not vote for Christina?
Fine line indeed. Thanks Penny.
Thank you, Phillip!
As a person who suffers from a mental illness, clinical depression, I had to vote for Christina too. I know that fine line very well, and I thank God for my wonderful psychiatrist, who I think would vote for Christina as well.
Christina the Astonishing. Bless her heart!
As astonishing as Christina is, Basil has had a special place in my heart ever since seminary, when a seminar group struggled through laborious translation of a page-and-a-half long single sentence of an oration of Basil, followed by three words: Toioutos o bios, Such is life. Indeed. We love that over which we labor.
Had to vote for Christina - "the smell of human sin was too much for her."
Basil Basil He's our man if he can't do it no one can!
As someone who has a mental illness (clinical depression) I had to vote for Christina. I'm very well acquainted with that "fine line between mysticism and mental illness."
My mother was mentally ill, hidden undiagnosed in the shadows of a small town, and I was a child, alone on the streets till I wandered into a church. The church secretary later scooped me into her fold and became my stabilizing "Basil." Logically, I should perhaps vote for him. But my vote is for this fascinating & astonishing "child of God," Christina, in memory of a mother whose endings I have no knowledge.
Thanks for this, Nan. I'm so glad that someone in a church loved you into stability after what you (and your mother) went through.
Amen.
Amen. It's stories like this that make LM more than jollity.
"[Christian] recoiled from human contact...because the smell of human sin was too much for her." I'm guessing she didn't smell too great either! No matter, she gets my vote!