In the penultimate (we love that word here at Lent Madness) matchup of the Saintly Sixteen, South African Bernard Mizeki faces Midwesterner Jackson Kemper. The winner will tangle with Molly Brant in the Elate Eight.
Yesterday, Brigid of Kildare took care of Dionysius the (evidently-not-so) Great 63% to 37% and will square off against Kamehameha in the next round.
Enjoy a weekend voting respite but be prepared to return bright and early Monday morning for the last battle of the Saintly Sixteen between Egeria and Thomas Ken. Then it's on to the Elate Eight! Oh, and go to church on Sunday. The SEC encourages that.
Bernard Mizeki
Bernard Mizeki's commitment to proclaiming the Gospel to the people of Africa led to his untimely death. Yet his courage, sacrifice, and commitment inspires thousands to gather every year to celebrate his life.
In 2013 Bernard Mizeki’s festival was held at his shrine for the first time in over five years. Before that the event had taken place in an area located about seven miles away due to the actions of former bishop Nolbert Kunonga, who barred any pilgrims from the shrine.
This festival gathers over 20,000 people for two days to dance, sing, and pray. After a religious service, thousands of pilgrims swarm to the hill where it is believed the body of Bernard Mizeki miraculously disappeared. Pilgrims draw water from the nearby stream believed to have been used to clean out Bernard Mizeki’s wounds. The water is believed to hold healing qualities
The zeal to dance and sing never dwindles throughout the two days of celebrations. For miles the praise songs in various African languages can be heard. Despite the low nighttime temperatures and scorching daytime temperatures, those who gather to pray and worship recognize Bernard Mizeki as one of the most important people in Africa.
The Most Rev. Albert Chama, Primate of the Church of the Province of Central Africa and Bishop of Northern Zambia, explained in an interview about the festival, the importance of the event and the relevance of Mizeki's example to the Christian people:
African Christians should know that the route they have chosen is not without challenges or hurdles. Christianity is about actions, some of which can lead to death. All pilgrims should remember that death in Christ is in fact a gain. The event itself shows the importance of Christianity among Africans, Bernard Mizeki was an African who was martyred for propagating the Good News to fellow Africans at a time when they did not understand the Christian faith.
In the same interview the Bishop of Harare, the Rt. Rev. Chad Gandiya, goes on to recognize Bernard Mizeki's deep commitment to God and his people.
Even after being warned, he decided to preserve the lives of others at the expense of his own. As a shepherd, you don’t desert people that have been put under your care. Having been in exile for a long time, we understand and find a lot of relevance and comfort from his life.
Jackson Kemper
The indefatigable Jackson Kemper established much of the Episcopal Church of the Midwest, including the Dioceses of Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, as well as the seminary Nashotah House.
He is memorialized in churches throughout the region, as in this stained glass window from St. Paul’s, Kansas City, Missouri. In the lower left-hand corner, he is riding a horse -- a fitting tribute, as he covered a territory of 450,000 miles, mostly by horseback.
He also appears in the novel The Deacon as a ghost who haunts Grace Church, Madison, Wisconsin. He might not have liked being fictionalized. According to his biographer, “He did not care for Shakespeare, and abhorred Byron.” He did, however, enjoy the occasional novel (“particularly, it is remembered, Judge Haliburton's ‘Sam Slick’") and “let his children read Scott's romances, but not too many of them at a time, fearing lest they should acquire a taste for fiction.”
Bishop Kemper “rose early, at five o'clock in summer and six in winter, and attributed his established health in large measure to his habitual morning bath in cold water, followed by the use of the flesh brush.” He wasn’t a total ascetic, however. It’s noted that he took lots of sugar in his coffee, and tea “very much sweetened.” After dining at 1:00 with family and guests, “if weather permitted, he would drive for hours or ride horseback, for he never acquired the habit of taking a nap in the afternoon.”
Not that weather stopped him from traveling. “He went once for twenty miles in a driving snowstorm without seeing a house; one night he was glad to share with eleven others the shelter of a log house of a single room; the snow drifted in and lay in heaps upon the middle of the floor: no one troubled himself to remove it, and it did not melt in the slightest degree.” St. Paul’s Church in Palmyra, Missouri, credits its founding to Bishop Kemper and bad weather: in 1836 when ice on the Mississippi stopped his travel, Bishop Kemper visited Palmyra, and sent a priest to establish the parish the following year.
When he was 62, Bishop Kemper accompanied one of his priests in Iowa. “One winter's night, when they had found shelter in a poor cottage on the plains, somewhere west of Dubuque, they were snowbound by a sudden and violent storm; in the morning all the water in the house was frozen; and they had to shovel a path through the snow to the shed where they had put their horse, to give him provender.”
For 11 years of his ministry, he did not have a permanent residence. Finally, in 1846, “Bishop Kemper took possession of a rustic homestead, thenceforth humorously known as ‘the Palace,’ hard by Nashotah” which became his home base until the end of his life.
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126 comments on “Bernard Mizeki vs. Jackson Kemper”
Well, I suppose even Midwesterners need a missionary (or did back then), but although Kemper faced some horrible weather, he did not face persecution and martyrdom. I had to go with Mizeki.
Jackson Kemper laid the cornerstone of my church, the oldest in the Diocese of Indianapolis!
I thought it was obscene not to take a nap in the afternoon. I voted for Mizeki.
Today, my vote is swayed by the snow falling outside my window on the first day of Spring. I'm dancing with Bernard in the face of harsh reality. Join me? http://theberry.com/2015/03/17/this-mashup-of-famous-dance-scenes-is-your-new-favorite-video-video/#
Oh, that was fabulous! Thank you!!
Yes.
She died before he began his travels.
I definitely connect well with Bernard with his courage in the face of death. I am also fond of singing and dancing. I will not cotton a man that does not love Shakespeare or Byron.
Voted mostly against Kemper--cold showers and dislike of Shakespeare hardly stacks up against an African martyr who comes complete with a festival where people dance for two days. But both are worthy saints of our church and Lent Madness is such a great learning opportunity!
REALLY?!
I voted for Kemper. I sense no one particularly cares.
No one cares how you vote?
I wish there was more information about Bernard Mizeki. When he lived, what he did, etc. What was his "untimely death?" Why did former bishop Nolbert Kunonga, barred any pilgrims from the shrine The author seems to assume that we know all the pertinent details and I for one didn't! It might have changed my voting, cause Jackson Kemper sounds like a stick in the mud with his dislike of fiction. Maybe it was those cold mid-west winters that froze his personality.
Oh, my ~ he was not a stick-in-the-mud: The Reverend David Keenen: “But one of his most striking characteristics was his benevolence. The Bishop's heart was indeed the tender spot, and no person or object ever appealed to him in vain. His clergy were his peculiar care and charge. He watched their circumstances with the closest attention, lest any of them might really suffer. He knew their scant means, and was ever ready, without request, to lend a helping hand; and always in the gentlest and kindest manner.”
My Dad taught at Nashotah for 10 years so I better vote for Kemper, much as I hated the place. How's that for Christianity?!!!
Does anyone know about the icon of Bernard? It is such a lovely example of a contemporary icon.
AH! Just had to vote for Bernard !!! Couldn't bring myself to vote for someone who didn't like fiction, I too am curious as to why Bishop Kunonga barred pilgrims from the shrine....
It was really certain kinds of fiction that he didn't like. The Reverend Greenough White: "He made it a rule to read daily in his Greek Testament and in some solid book, preferably of divinity, and generally found time to do some light reading beside, making it a point to keep up with the news of the day through journals and reviews. He enjoyed books of humor, particularly, it is remembered, as a hit at the Yankees, Judge Haliburton's "Sam Slick"; but strangely enough did not care for "Pickwick" or Dickens' other books. He enjoyed books of wholesome fun like the "Innocents Abroad," and deriving the greatest pleasure from articles in Littell's Living Age. He was especially interested, during those latter years, in books about Palestine, such as Robinson's "Physical Geography of the Holy Land," and in Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies of the East." He read the latest theological works until within a couple of years of his death, never went on a visitation without carrying some with him, which he would give or send to his isolated missionaries."
Often I start to post, but after reading all the other comments - I realize there is no need! I find myself nodding in agreement and laughing or shaking my head at all the warm, witty, and thoughtful comments. I don't think my thoughts could add anything better - so this comment is simply to say - Go Commenters! You all rock! (In a kind and respectful manner, of course.)
Like the SEC, I also love the word "penultimate," which has little to do with my vote today, but I like to encourage anyone who calls attention to under-used words. As an ESL teacher and long-time fan of all things cross-cultural, I am always pleased to contemplate the fact that my Church is part of the world-wide Anglican Communion. I felt called to vote for Mizeki.
i voted for bishop Kempfer since I am a former UMC pastor who came to Christ as a child due to those other irregular and itinerant Anglicans on horseback -- circuit riders. I attended university in Lebanon, Il founded by william Mckendree also a missionary bishop
Mizeki, though I love them both.
I'm sorry Bernard lost his life for the Gospel,and it's clear people in Africa draw much inspiration from his sacrifice (although the story is missing from the bio) with disappearing body stories and annual pilgrimages and an awareness that following Christ can include Martyrdom.
But I'm more inspired by Kemper's lifetime of arduous missionary work for the Gospel in the American Frontier, and think the sacrifice of decades of difficult travel and Episcopal visitations to pioneer settlements should be Told and celebrated. Jackson Kemper is a 3-point point winner for me.
As an Anglo-Catholic, and priest-in-charge of an Anglo-Catholic parish, Kemper gets my vote. Bernard Mizeki's martyrdom, and the martyrdom of so many Christians these days in Africa and the Middle East command our respect and our prayers. On the other hand, Christians, including Anglicans, in Uganda and Nigeria, have been complicit in the persecution and murder of LGBT Christians in their own lands, which makes it difficult to be quite objective here. Nevertheless, we should all be prepared to give the defense of our faith even in the face of death, and Bernard Mizeki's as well as the new, mostly Coptic, Christian martyrs can help us with their example and their prayers.
As a Wisconsinite who lives and works in southern Africa, I draw a lot of inspiration from the witness of both of these saints and voted for both in the first round. Tough decision- came into this round absolutely sure that I'd vote for Mizeki and ended up voting for Kemper instead. His founding of Nashotah House has a lot to do with my final decision.
This was a tough one. I decided on Bishop Kemper, because his story reminds me so much of what the early Methodist Circuit Riders went through.
What a difficult choice again. I would be happy to see either man progress for all they achieved in God's service. However, I voted for Bernard to honour the martyrs of our own times; thinking especially of the Coptic Christians of Egypt and the Christians of Pakistan.
I went for Bernard, and I never comment, however with the almost (iit seems) martyrdom of Christians in africa and especially in the Middle East, I had to support Bernard. Let him be a gountain of strength for those currently persecuted.
I voted for Jackson Kemper, but I agree it's a tough vote. The Hawkeyes just won in that other tournament, though and they can carry a torch for him. Would he be the sort to use his influence against Jesuits?
Mzeki again, because I was ordained on his feast day, and frankly because he deserves to be in the final four, if not the halo itself. Go team Mzeki!
I'm thinking I need to read the novel "The Deacon" and learn more about the ghost of Jackson Kemper. He got my vote.
Quotes: Kinman: “The whole job description of Missionary Bishop was founded on the idea of carrying the Gospel to new frontiers … translating it into new languages … bringing it to the people where they lived instead of expecting them to travel to where we already were. Jackson Kemper was a person of deep courage. Not just for traveling to faraway places under dangerous conditions but because he spent time with people – poor farmers, First Peoples – that many moneyed, educated, East Coast Episcopalians thought weren’t worth the church’s time and money. He heard the wagging tongues of the Pharisees many times saying ‘I can’t believe he’s eating with THOSE people!’”
My hubby and I both voted for Bernard Mizeki because he gave his life for God. In my estimation, any saint that inspires people to make pilgrimages to a shrine in their memory has to be very special, like right up there with St. James and the Camino pilgrimage routes to Santiago, Spain.
I vote for Bernard.