443 comments on “Accepting Nominations!”

1. Let's hear it for the Little Flower! I nominate Therese of Lisieux.

   1. I second her! I had to do a project about her in middle school and I fell in love with her childlike faithfulness.

2. I nominate St. Denis, the patron saint of Paris, who, after he was beheaded, is said to have picked up his head and completed a 10k preaching repentance the whole way.

3. Chiune Sugihara, Japanese diplomat in Lithuania during WWII who issued thousands of transit visas to Jews so they could escape the Holocaust. He risked his career and his and his family's lives to give an estimated 6,000-10,000 people a chance at survival. Against orders from his superiors, he handwrote visas 18-20 hours a day for six weeks in the summer of 1940 until the Japanese consulate closed and he was recalled to Japan, where he would later lose his job for his decision to set human lives over a directive from a distant government. He was a Christian and a good man and he is honored as one Righteous Among the Nations at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel. The Episcopal Church calendar honors the Righteous Gentiles on July 16.

   1. Seconded - Sugihara was a fascinating and profoundly good-hearted man who stood fast in the face of the cruelty of war and genocide.

4. Harriet Starr Cannon, founder of the Community of Saint Mary.

5. I would like to nominate Sergei of Radonezh and Saint Paisius Velichkovsky

6. I nominate St. Polycarp of Smyrna.
   He's venerated in the
   Anglican Communion
   Eastern Orthodox Church
   Oriental Orthodox Church
   Roman Catholic Church and the
   Lutheran Church
   At the time of his martyrdom, when asked to betray Jesus, St Polycarp is credited with saying "eighty and six years have I served Him and He has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and Savior? Bring forth what thou wilt"

   I also nominate my patron, St. Joseph. Seriously, SEC, how hard do you think it was to accept everything he needed to in faith - Many preachers preach "Mary said yes!" She might have been stoned if Joseph had not also said yes. I claim I him as patron saint of step parents - from experience, I can tell you that can be a thankless job - as well as a joy. But think about the "mano a mano" talks that may have gone down.
   My third nominee is St. Thomas the Apostle. Often labeled "Doubting Thomas" first let's give him props for asking the hard questions. Isn't that something we encourage? Also here's a question or so: why doesn't anyone ask where Thinas was when Jesus appeared in the upper room? Perhaps he was guarding the door to keep safe all the cowering rest of the group? Perhaps he was going for groceries because the others were to afraid to go out and be recognized. Perhaps he was out "getting the lay of the land - OR even scouting out and encouraging other of Jesus' followers who were terrified and hiding.
   Just sayin'

7. How about saint Jonathan Myrick Daniels? He is one of only two modern day US saints listed in Canterbury Cathedral and was a member of our episcopal church: St. James, Keene, NH. He join the civil rights movement whilst in seminary and went to Alabama when MLK jr put out the call to everyone. (Around the time of the Selma issues.Jonathan gave his life to save a young girl, Ruby Sales, from being shot as a deputy sheriff shot at her when they approached a corner store to buy a drink in Haynesville, Alabama, after being released from 9 days in jail without charge.
   This August it is exactly 50 years since he was martyred and our church is celebrating him on August 23. We are also taking a youth pilgrimage down to Alabama to follow in his footsteps, learn more about civil rights (then and now) and join the EDS pilgrimage for him on 8/15.
   Ruby Sales is still around and decided to "make her life count" after this sacrifice, doing many good works...
   The other modern day US saint in Canterbury is of course MLK jr.

8. Please consider Henry Benjamin Whipple, 1822-1901, first bishop of the Diocese of Minnesota. In a life filled with amazing accomplishments, among other things he founded the boarding schools Shattuck (for boys) and St. Mary's Hall (for girls), built Seabury Divinity School, ordained the first Native American to the priesthood, but most of all was best known as an advocate for Native Americans, who called him 'Straight Tongue." He asked President Lincoln to commute the death sentences of 303 Dakota warriors involved in the 1862 Dakota War; Lincoln complied for all but 38. The hanging of the 38 in Mankato, Minnesota, was and remains the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Read "And the Wilderness Shall Blossom" by Anne B. Allen

9. I nominate both St. Nicholas and St. Barnabus for the support & encouragement they provided in their time and for me today.

10. I nominate Saint Sebastian. We just returned from a trip to Italy where his tremendous popularity was evident...you couldn't walk for 5 minutes without finding some image of him, including graffiti of him in the alleys. His outspokenness against the mistreatment of early Christians is as appealing as the visual of him surviving being shot through with arrows. My second nomination is Saint Barbara...how can you resist the patron saint of artillery?

11. Please consider putting Euphrosynous the Cook into the line-up.

12. St. Anne

13. I'm nominating Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, abolitionists and women's rights activists.

14. I would like to nominate Bishop Charles Henry Brent. Born in Canada, bishop in the Philippines and in the United States.

15. Saint Katharine Drexel; Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

16. The Rev. John Roberts, Wyoming

17. I haven't read the above. So I don't know everyone nominated. My choice is Damian of Molokai.

18. Mary and Martha (or Mary if only one allowed) for their faithfulness. Mary for her love of wisdom, Martha for the
    unglamorous behind the scenes caring for Jesus.

    1. That would be difficult to choose. I'd go for Martha, though, since she is not only the one who did the work but also the woman who asked Jesus how he could raise Lazarus when her brother had been dead for days.

19. I nominate John Muir. Since General Convention is likely to suppress his commemoration this year, it is do or die for him.

20. Queen Elizabeth I. Not on any list (though she SHOULD be -- IMHO!). Without her there would have been no us.

    1. Yeah man, you right.....

21. Elizabeth Seton
    Catherine of Siena
    Julian of Norwich
    Thurgood Marshall
    Martin Luther
    William Tyndale
    St. Paul

    1. Here's a big fat second for Thurgood Marshall!!! I've been nominating him for a couple of years now.

22. "The holy and glorious venerable-martyr Maria Skobtsova (also Saint Mary of Paris or Mother Maria) was a nun and martyr in Paris in the early twentieth century." (From Orthodox Wiki.) She has sometimes been compared to Dorothy Day. She died in a concentration camp in 1945, having rescued many Jews in France. Not as 'flamboyant' as some other Marys, she was a Bolshevik for awhile, returned to Christianity and became a nun only if she was not cloistered. Wrote several books and very active serving the poor. Check her out! She is on the Orthodox calendar in July.

23. I second the nominations for St. Columba and also add St. Aidan. St. Aidan was one of St. Columba's monks; he established the monastery in Lindisfarne and spread Christianity in Northern England.

24. Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat, saved thousands of Jews during WWII in Lithuania by going against orders and writing them visas to escape for 18 hours a day. He's celebrated as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox (somewhat unofficially, but he is actually on many church calendars of saints days) which he had converted to after living in Lithuania for awhile. His story is largely unknown outside of Lithuania but would make a great movie.

    Katerina von Bora Luther, besides putting up with Martin for so many years, and famously escaping her convent in a herring barrel, was actually quite the theologian herself, if untrained, and is celebrated by the Lutherans as a great church leader in her own right (we aren't that big on "saints").

    1. Ooh! Yes, I second this nomination -- Martin would never have accomplished so much without this "saint" by his side!!

    2. I also think Martin Luther and Katerina von Bora Luther would make good nominess. Luther certainly gave Henry VIII a leg up!

    3. I second (or fourth?) the nomination of Katie Luther.

25. John Knox for my Presbyterian friends,
    St. Scholastica for my friends at the Benedictine monastery,
    St. Julian of Norwich, St. Columba of Scotland, and St. Nicholas for the children I teach,
    and Adelaide Teague Case, an early advocate for child centered learning.

26. St. Bernadette of Lourdes. And Catherine of Siena, again.

27. I nominate, for the 2016 Lent Madness bracket, Julian of Norwich.

28. Julian of Norwich
    Sts. Sergius and Bacchus

29. Martin Luther King Jr., I see other "non Saints" such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Also, The Blessed Mother of Christ, Mary.

30. I nominate St. Andrew the Apostle, St. Mark, and St. Giles.