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”
As someone who has a continual struggle to maintain sanity (politics, you know), I should vote for Christina, and I have always been annoyed that the creeds totally ignore Jesus' life and ministry, but that may not be Basil's fault. I like the Trinity. Will have to think more about this.
Here's a vote for the distinct, intense reality of true un-medicated womanhood! Go St. Christina!
This is my first year of Lenten Madness! - what a joy to meet these saints and hear their story. If the comments are true that Catherine's b-day is July 24th, I will have to vote for her as my b-day is one day later. Wish I could arise from the dead and fly into the rafters! (oh yeah then you have to do the hard work after for another 50 years?? - maybe not such a good wish). Both great saints. Again I will have fun with this for Lent!
I was quite prepared to vote for Basil, until , upon reading the bio of Christina, I realized that I had very likely seen her in our congregation last night. I thought at the time she was a Pixie, and now I believe she was sent to encourage me to vote for Christina.
This was a left-brain/right-brain matchup for me and so since I am "left-brained" and Presbyterian, Basil seemed the logical choice for me. Decently and in order!
My vote is for Christina! She has added great enthusiasm and joy to the adventure of Lent Madness, here at Trinity Church (egad! is that being disloyal). She definitely has the votes here! Honorable as tasteful as Basil is/was I have been totally astounded by Christina!!
Can anything good come from Belgium? The jury's still out on that question but apparently "astonishing" is another matter entirely. Today's match-up of Great vs Astonishing sounds like it was suggested by Marvel Comics, but what a great way to kick off the competition...and this season of penitent reflection.
let's see: best beer in the world, check. best french fries in the world, check. best chocolate in the world, check. next question?
I voted for Basil.
Catherine was too astonishing for me to take seriously. 🙂
It seems that some of our present day observations about Christina and how astounding and "crazy" it appears through our modern eyes is exactly how many saw and experienced Jesus and his astounding feats of power and exhibits of moral and spiritual authority. Even today, if were to use logic and rationale in Jesus' case, we would be deemed insane for believing a man could walk on water, command nature to bend to his will, cure mental illness with a word or a touch, make the blind to see, the lamb to walk and 5,000 hungry fed with two fish and five loaves of bread, the equivalent of a week of food stamps. Christina was an extraordinary and astonishing instrument of God's will. Christina got my vote!
Amen, Brother Eugene!
Have to go with St. Basil. In terms of positive influence on the Churh and, I believe, all of creation, Basil has left a much greater legacy than St. Christina. Both lived wonderful lives but I'm gonna have to give this one to Basil the Great.
Wow. As much as I can't deny that Basil has the greater impact on the whole, I have to give my own vote to Christina, because as someone who has skated on that same edge and nearly fallen, I feel that she is more "my" saint.
I vote Christina the Astonishing because she is a reminder that our church is about the mystical and the mysterious as much as the practical and the pedestrian.
And... the levitation at her own funeral!! Whoa! Astonishing!
I was impressed by the similarity of Christina’s death/resurrection experience to those described by people who have had a near-death, out-of-body experience. I wonder how such an event might have been understood, retold and recorded in Christina’s day. Had to vote for her. My husband is a Belgian-American.
A parable: Shortly before the Super Bowl, I was wearing my Pittsburgh Steelers jacket. An acquaintance looked at it quizzically, and then asked who I was rooting for in the Super Bowl. "The Steelers," I said. Likewise, I voted for Christina (how can I not vote for this saint with my name?), and will continue to vote for her throughout the competition, even if she is outvoted in this round. Also, my husband had a long career as a mental health counselor. He and I agreed that Christina's story reminds us of that of St. Francis of Assisi, although he didn't perch in rafters or trees. He did run out onto a roof while in the clutch of delirium (or at least, in the movie he did....)
Two worthy candidates for sure, and surely two extraordinary lives. However, for this, my first vote ever, I cast my lot with Christina. The mentally ill (and I, being bipolar, am one) need all the patrons they can get, and Christina was indeed astonishing. You go, girl!
Having experienced dementia in one loved one and bipolar illness in another, I have to cast my vote for Christina the Astonishing!
BTW - that's a really great collect, Nancy Hopkins-Greene!
Today I was feeling more astonished than great, although I appreciated learning about both of them.
My comment, however, has to do with the Archbishops. Being only in my 3rd year of Lent Madness, I did not see the writeups from when they were actual contestants. Given their riveting commentary, which makes them ineligible to compete again, I'd like to see bios of them on the Lent Madness page. I want to know more!
Gotta cast my vote for Christina! Both are clearly worthy so it's a hard choice.
Thank you saint Christina, I needed that laugh today. This is my first ever lent madness vote. How could I not vote for Christina (who was astonishingly mad) when the name of this group is Lent Madness?!
I had to vote for Basil, but I immediately called my sister, a therapist, and encouraged her to vote for Christina. Talk about cancelling your own vote!
New to Lent Madness this year. I had no choice in this but to vote for Basil. Like him, if there's a "fray" to be found, I'll step firmly into it. Also I discovered from another source (sorry) that Basil was a lawyer before he became a monk. Being a retired lawyer (in recovery), I can certainly identify. There were days....
To me, this is not left brain vs. right brain. It is male-dominated paradigm vs. a potential female paradigm. If we lived inside a female paradigm, perhaps St. Basil would be patron saint of the mentally ill...
Since we're emulating basketball, I went with Basil.
I'm impressed with the "heights" that Christina rose to and clearly she can "rebound," but can she dunk?
Basil has the look of a "seasoned" coach.
I was all set to vote for Basil, but then the tidbit about the Nick Cave song made me say, "Oh, why the heck not vote for this odd ball!" It's not called Lent "Madness" for nuthin'!
I had hard time voting but in the end Christina got my vote.
I voted for Christina. Don't hate me folks, but I have little fondness for the right-wing orthodox of the early church, and the Nicene creed sticks in my throat with theology inconsistent with the New Testament itself. I am sure Basil was a good man, but Christianity might have been better off if his faction didn't "win."
And Christina, patron saint of the mentally ill? That alone would get my vote.
I'm right there with you. Christina seems a little mad, but then so am I and many others I love. And I can't help but feel a little dubious about a lot of that early orthodoxy, and wonder how much of it is really true. Or more true than whoever Basil was fighting! (Though I like the parts about helping the poor.)
Besides...how is "Christina the Astonishing" not a superhero name?
I'm voting for Basil but I get the feeling that Christina could be the Cinderella of the tournament.
Christina is closing the gap! What's the deadline for voting? In which time zone???
I don't understand how Christina's behavior after her "death experience" made "penances for those in Hell and Purgatory, that they might be released; and suffer to convert the living." I do believe there is often a fine line between genius and insanity, but Basil's my guy.