"Wait, St. Swithun was a real person?" We get that a lot. "Wait, Molly Brant was a real person?" We never get that. Nonetheless, welcome to the first and only Saturday match-up of Lent Madness 2015. Go ahead, sleep late and dally over your coffee while you read about these two saintly souls. But don't get used to it: after today's battle, voting will return bright and early on Monday morning with Hadewijch facing off against Juan Diego.
In yesterday's action, David Oakerhater stunned Teresa of Avila in the first major upset of the season. In heavy voting (another day, another record total), David scored 60% of the vote to Teresa's 40% and will go on to face the winner of William Laud vs. King Kamehameha in the Saintly Sixteen.
Yes, folks, it's called Lent Madness for a reason. If your bracket is busted, you're not alone. But stick around -- the real goal is to learn about some amazing people, not to "win" Lent. Of course if you do stand victorious at the end of the season, you have every right to gloat. In a loving, Christian kind of way, of course.
As long as you're enjoying a leisurely morning, why not listen to Tim chatting about all things Lent Madness from yesterday's edition of Boston Public Radio? Click here and then scroll to 1:28 of the broadcast to catch the only segment that really matters.
Swithun
Saint Swithun, often humorously referenced as the patron of the generic country church “in the field” or "in the swamp," was an actual Anglo-Saxon bishop and was enshrined at Winchester Cathedral. He is revered for posthumous miracle working and is believed to hold sway over the weather, especially the rain. According to tradition, the weather on his feast day of July 15 continues for forty days. And Californians, take note: Saint Swithun can also be prayed to for the relief of drought.
Swithun was a pious Bishop of Winchester in the ninth century. He convinced King Æthelwulf to bequeath a tenth of his royal lands to the Church, and with those lands Swithun built and restored churches with noted zeal. The king relied on the revered bishop for spiritual counsel, while another bishop advised him on temporal matters. Swithun was known as a friend of the poor who traveled his diocese on foot. A single miracle was attributed to the bishop while he was alive. Workmen were said to have maliciously broken an old woman’s eggs. He picked them up, and they were miraculously restored.
Very little else of his life was recorded, and the history of his bodily remains was most notable to his sainthood. He died on July 2, 862. On his deathbed the bishop was said to have begged to be buried outside where people might pass over his grave and raindrops fall upon it. Consequently, British lore holds that Saint Swithun’s day foretells the weather.
July, it will rain for 40 days.
For forty days it will remain:
St. Swithun’s day if thou be fair:
For forty days ‘twill rain nae mare.
More than a hundred years after his death, Swithun was made patron of Winchester Cathedral. His body was transferred from its earthen grave to Æthelwold’s new cathedral, and the move was accompanied by many reported miracles. Subsequently, his body was divided among a number of smaller shrines. His head was taken to Canterbury Cathedral, while Peterborough Abbey came to be in possession of one arm. The Winchester shrine to Swithun was demolished in 1538 during the English Reformation, but a modern representation of it was rebuilt in the cathedral, so one can still visit with pleas for rain and egg repair.
Collect for Swithun
Almighty God, by whose grace we celebrate again the feast of your servant Swithun: grant that, as he governed with gentleness the people committed to his care, so we, rejoicing in our Christian inheritance, may always seek to build up your Church in unity and love; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Molly Brant (Konwatsijayenni “Someone Lends Her a Flower”)
Molly Brant was born in 1736 along the Mohawk River in present-day central New York. In an age when women, much less Native American women, rarely had a voice in public discourse, Molly Brant became a well-regarded Mohawk leader, helping to promote peaceful relations between the Iroquois nation and the British government during the Revolutionary War era. A dedicated Anglican, she came to be known by the Church as the “Witness to the Faith Among the Mohawks.”
Raised in the Ohio Territory, Molly Brant returned to her native village, where she quickly established herself as a leader among the Mohawk Nation. She sought to draw fellow Mohawks into the Anglican faith without dismissing their native culture and spirituality. Her work garnered the attention of Sir William Johnson, a widower and the superintendent of Northern Indian Affairs. She became his common-law wife, and together, they had nine children. As Johnson’s wife, Brant served as an influential and authoritative voice of the Iroquois people in dealing with the British and an essential factor in Johnson’s reception as superintendent among Native Americans. The respect and esteem the British held for Brant was not only unique during that era but it was also key to preserving peaceful relations between the two nations and cultures.
During the American Revolution, Brant remained loyal to Great Britain, providing lodging and food to British soldiers and uniting four of the six Iroquois nations as Loyalists. Two years into the war, she and her family were forced to flee to Onondaga, where she remained until the war’s end in order to avoid imprisonment by the Patriots. Despite her forced relocation, Brant continued to work for harmony among the Iroquois people and their European neighbors. Her deft leadership led one commander of the British military to declare that Brant was “far superior to that of all their chiefs put together.”
Upon the surrender of the British in Yorktown, Virginia, in 1783, Brant moved with her family to Cataraqui in Canada’s province of Ontario, where she served as a founding member of both the town of Kingston and its first Anglican church. She remained near Kingston until her death in 1796.
Collect for Molly Brant
Maker and lover of all creation, you endued Molly Brant with the gifts of justice and loyalty, and made her a wise and prudent clan mother in the household of the Mohawk nation: Draw us also toward the goal of our faith, that we may at last attain the full dignity of our nature in our true native land, where with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Vote!
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279 comments on “Swithun vs. Molly Brant”
St. Swithiun fell down on the job here in the Northeast - the weather has been awful! Surely knowing the vote was coming up he could have buttered up his constituents. Molly Brant it is!
St. Swithun all the way! We all talk about the weather, but as a saint he can actually do something about it.
And, the siege at Yorktown ended in October 1781, not 1783. That was the year for the Treaty of Paris' ratification.
Voted for Swithun. (I had even mentioned St. Swithun's in the Swamp in a sermon.) Molly just didn't do it for me.
I love the learning and excitment of Lent Madness! ...even when "my" person does not win. I am frustrated however that I am not on the email notification list no matter how many times I sign up to be. That does not deter me from going to the website...it does leave me wondering however.
Does you email service have a junk mail, bulk mail, or spam mail folder?
If yes, have you checked it lately?
Swithun, because who can resist that name, even though I know I'm going with the looser today!
Swithun - they need rain on the west coast
Voting takes an extra click, easy enough once I got it.
For me as first generation US'er it is native all the way.
We live in California and are wholeheartedly voting for Swithun in hopes of rain, and lots of it, soon, this very month of February. Please Dear Saint.
Allay your fears about dear St. Swithin having his body parts cut up. Get real. By that point he would have been skeletonized and/or all dried up. How much better to share and bury parts of his holy body than to display his bones inside glass containers as gruesome "relics" which the Papists are want to do. I think this relic fascination (check out Rome) is kind of creepy. I really don't want to pray to a vertebral body. St. Swithun has always been a favorite of mine so he gets my vote. Too bad I've been picking all the losers so this does not bode well for St. Swithun.
In the week the bishops of the Church of England have published a pastoral letter urging people to engage in the electoral process I can't cast my vote for Swithun who left others to advise the king on temporal msttrts.
Tough call. As a woman, I love that Molly was so influential at that point in history. On the other hand, I'm a Californian--and we desperately need rain. St. Swithun it is!
Another Californian for St Swithin/un. Please let seasonal rain fall on all areas of drought around the world.
Could you remind me what time polls close for the day, EST? Thank you!
Did your writer not consider the fact that St. Swithun is the patron saint of rutabaga growers significant.
In honor of my father who always insisted upon rutabagas at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners though no one else would eat them, I cast my vote for Swithun.....others can handle the weightier considerations.
St. S. got my vote! My life's work is in Pastoral Care, sounds like he had it down in spades!
C'mon St. Swinthum - definitely the underdog here - but hope, like Lent Madness springs eternal (or at least annually.
Ok, I just read about both of today's (Saturday) saints, but the vote box and two radio-type buttons did NOT appear at the bottom, so how can I vote? Is there a problem for everyone today?
The only voting problem is if you try to vote within the email. You must go to http://www.lentmadness.org in order to vote.
When my wife was in seminary at EDS, I worked in the spider collections at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. My father reasoned that spiders had extra protection on St. Swithun's day due to the folk lore that stepping on a spider would make it rain. Thus St. Swithun might be considered the patron of spiders and arachnologists.Not sure that this helps his case with others, but I still remember the great St. Swithun's day parties with seminarians and zoology grad students!
Ignore the last questions from me, I must have had a senior moment, because I finally remembered how to get to the correct screen to vote!
As someone who owns a few hens, I am impressed by St. Swithun's egg-repair miracle. But I have to go with Molly. She is pretty badass.
I was impressed by many of Molly's achievements, but St. Swithin gets my vote today -- this Papist has to vote for a humble bishop who focused on the poor. 🙂
St. Swithin, pray for us and for your brother bishop Francis!
The first year I joined the Madness, I was careful to choose the "real" folks and not the ones who were more "theoretical." Now, after several years, I go with my heart. I voted for St. Swithin; the weather could use the help.
I love the fact that Swithun wanted to be buried outside where ordinary people could walk over his grave. However, after much thought and reading through the comments, I'm going with Molly, despite the fact that she was a loyalist. Nine children, and she still had time to be a leader to the Iriquois, bring them christianity, and help keep the peace? That IS a miracle!
I voted for Molly Brant.. I loved that she could be a wise Christian leader among the Mohawks, & did not dismiss their native culture & spirituality. She was a extraordinary woman .
Too difficult....was always fascinated by St Swithusnsince girlhood when I visited Winchester Cathedral...a man for the people....did not know of Molly...what a woman.....too difficuot to vote
I am a total weather weenie, and I am going to vote for the patron saint of weather regardless of who he is up against. In this case it was not a difficult choice though, as the competition picked the wrong side. Sorry, but to the victor goes the vote. But hey, wait a minute, I have voted for an Englishman - I am so confused. I will stick with the weather!
My histories say that St S wished to remain outside in the churchyard and NOT in a posh monument inside the cathedral, so when they dug him up and put him inside his comeback was 40 days of torrential rain and storms.
He was a humble man and wanted to be with the rest of us, he's the one for me.
I must vote for Swithun. I've sung in all the places mentioned where parts of his remains remain. And I live in California.....maybe we could petition him to send us some of the snow you all back east have too much of.
I'm voting for Molly Brant - I grew up in Upstate NY, and heard many tales about Joseph Brant, her brother, who had a great effect on history in the area. For Molly to have helped her brother Joseph in his path in life was also a credit to her. I had not heard that Iroquois lands extended into Ohio or Wisconsin, but I have visited places in Ontario Canada where they were moved after the U.S. Revolutionary War. Something new learned there.
Whoa! Almost missed this one. Whew! Had to bote for dear Swithun with his rain and egg proclivity. couldnt bring myself to vote for the native American regardless of my love for thr Mohawk nation. As an American who can trace their heritage to the American Revolution I could not bring myself to vote for someone who worked to foil my ancestors.