Welcome to the Faithful Four. After weeks of learning and deliberating and voting and eschewing chocolate, we have whittled the field of 32 saintly souls down to four spiritual heroes: Constance, Julian of Norwich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Sojourner Truth. All are worthy of the coveted Golden Halo, yet only one will end up with his or her mug on a mug.
Today Constance (Anna Courie) takes on Julian of Norwich (Amber Belldene); tomorrow Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Beth Lewis) battles Sojourner Truth (Megan Castellan). And on Spy Wednesday the championship round will take place with the Golden Halo announced at 8:00 am EST on Maundy Thursday.
In this round, we let our four remaining Celebrity Bloggers loose as they answer the question “Why should Saint XX win the Golden Halo?” In other words, they’ve been charged with letting us know why their particular saint is so awesome. We have also invited them to share their two favorite images of their saints.
To make it to the Faithful Four, Constance dispatched Dominic, Helena, and Vida Dutton Scudder with relative ease. Julian snuck past William Wilberforce, before defeating Roch and Albert Schweitzer.
Maybe one of these remaining four will end up on a future Pocket Lent card. What's that? Well the SEC released two new ones yesterday for your cutting and pasting pleasure.
Let the voting (once) begin!
Constance
Inside everyone is a secret desire to be a superhero at a time when the world needs heroes. We want to stand up and be more than we think we are capable. We want to have the passion for great deeds. We want to be the change we want to see in the world. I think this is what St. Paul calls the "Holy Spirit within us." This spirit-spark calls us all to greater things.
Constance and her Companions had this God-spark within them. They were called as educators, but took on the role as nurses and caregivers during the epidemic of yellow fever that destroyed Memphis, Tennessee in 1878. They took action when great deeds were needed in the town where God planted them. Constance and Her Companions stayed to make a difference. As one avid reader noted in response to my coined term, "Constance would Go," the appropriate tag-line should be "Constance Would Stay."
God calls us to stay through many difficult times. We all have the opportunity to bear witness to Christ's love to others in disease, infirmity, poverty, social ills, and wrongs, during times when humanity seems to bear down on us as a disease rather than a gift. God calls all of us.
Sure, voting for Constance and her Companions is a vote recognizing the wonder of a giving soul during a horrific disease. She not only gave of her
time, her energy and her passion, but in the end, she also gave of her life. With her last words, she continued to honor her love of God with a joyful, "Alleluia, Hosanna." Constance understood that even in death, we have the joy of the resurrection. Constance understood at her death that God was there, was a part of her, and a part of both life and death. God was a part of all of Constance.
A vote for Constance is a vote recognizing the God-spark in us all. It is a vote that acknowledges each of us in our own individual ways are saints that are called to honor God with our actions, deeds, words, writings, and lives. "Constance Would Go" may ring a bell with you, but you could easily replace it with your own name: "Anna Would Go;" "Tim Would Go;" "Scott Would Go;" "Joe Would Go;" "Jane Would Go." We all should Go (or stay) as God calls us. "A faith without works is no faith."
To "go" means to bear witness to all the actions of the saints. Therefore, whether you are called to the social activism of your saints, or the liturgical writings, or the creative songs, or passionate political stances, remember, a vote with "Constance would Go" is a vote for all the actions of all the saints.
Constance watercolor by Bill Branch. You can see more of his art online at his website, www.billbranchartist.com.
Julian of Norwich
It astonishes me as both a priest and a parent how quickly, even in the twenty-first century children come to think of God as male. I strive to use inclusive language in liturgy, preaching, teaching and our household God talk, and yet all it takes is the occasional male pronoun slipping in for children to make the leap.
Therefore, Julian’s feminist Trinitarian theology born in the fourteenth century is utterly astonishing. She sees Christ in the role of mother alongside God the father. God incarnate is best imagined via the physical nurture and love of a mother—birth, breastfeeding, and boo-boo tending.
And how does she know? Not by rigorous scholarship and systematic inquiry, but divine revelation—God showed her! I am immensely grateful for the education that allowed her to write down these showings, making her the first female author of a book in English.
Though her contributions are not only intellectual or theological, but pastoral. I know of countless people who have taken comfort in her optimistic vision of God, humanity, and eschatology. Many people have a favorite quote or passage they can reference—being clothed in God’s love, or the assurance that all will be well.
Personally, her vision of the hazelnut has brought me great comfort. Years ago, before becoming a mother of twins, I experienced years of 
infertility, culminating in a miscarriage. My wonderful spiritual director pointed me toward Julian, and I remembered the Bridge Building Images Icon of her that sat in the chapel at CDSP when I was in seminary.
"And in this Christ showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, 'What may this be?' And it was answered generally thus, 'It is all that is made.' I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God."
When I thought of the pregnancy I had lost, an embryo about the size of a hazelnut, I was deeply comforted by the idea that it had begun by God’s love and in some mysterious way would always have life in that love. Since that time, I have shared the quote with other grieving women in my pastoral care, and it always brings comfort.
Courageous, compassionate and ahead of her time, Julian is an inspiration and comfort to the modern Christian. She most assuredly deserves the Golden Halo.
NOTE: At about 3 p.m. EDT, we blocked an address in Towson, MD. While there were some legitimate votes from this address, there was also a concerted effort to cast extra votes for Constance. We are removing 500 votes for Constance, which is a very conservative number. More that 800 votes were cast for Constance, and we suspect that some of these votes are legitimate votes.
Reminder: Vote once only per person. Lobbying others to vote is fair game. Voting hundreds of times is not.
[poll id="169"]
229 comments on “Constance vs. Julian of Norwich”
How tiny a hazelnut and how beautiful!
I tend to be a "do-er" but recognize that it is important to have a reason for the "do-ing". I will vote for Constance as a saint I can relate to on a very human level.
Amber and Anna - you have made this decision really hard! You both touched my heart and your reasoning was excellent.
Yes, a hard choice. So my vote goes to Roch. I still think he can make a comeback. Let's go San Rocco!
"Like." He will come back, in a few years. Your miracle is just down the road . . . a few years.
Vote Constance!!! Our class will get 25 extra credit points if she wins!
As a former chaplain with CSM, I hve supported Constance; as an ailurophile I have supported Julian. Now that they are up against each other, well I support them both but have to pick one and wind up with Julian. Her Revelations and her assurance that All will be well speak to me directly, and I'm not sure I could come close to following Constance's example without that kind of underlying encouragement.
I voted for Julian of Norwich, because I just loved how she thought about smallest things, and how even though something is very small, god still loves it for what its worth.
A true and great idea, and perfectly said!
Sarah, yours is one of the best summaries of Julian I have read. Thank you for your insight.
thank you, you just made my day. 🙂
I'm glad to see Sarah 15 years old is back. I've missed her comments.
Ditto for me! Hi Sarah!
Constance would go!
Constance would go (or stay)! She epitomizes what we all should be. It was a hard choice but Constance gets my vote today!
This one is so close, there have been other matches where I have had no hesitation in voting for one or the other. I had never heard of Constance before - a truly saintly person, but Julian's words won my vote.
Thank you for bringing such people to our attention.
Anna and Amber:
Thanks and blessings to you both for your inspirational writings today. I enjoy all the CBs, but you both reached new heights today. Thank you (and all the wonderful commentators) for making my Lent a truly spiritual time this year.
This was a difficult choice, but not as hard as tomorrow's match up will be. I went with Julian and have hope of her going all the way to the Golden Halo this year.
Both in my book of saints our friend constance is equal with both St.the three have been my, teachers God bless us all.
As I read today's post regarding Julian of Norwich, the following struck me: "She sees Christ in the role of mother alongside God the father. God incarnate is best imagined via the physical nurture and love of a mother—birth, breastfeeding, and boo-boo tending."
First, I have great difficulty with the idea of ascribing a gender to God -- male of female. For me, I feel that to do so somehow limits my understanding of God. God to me is beyond gender and hence the importance of using neutral language.
I also have great difficulty with the idea of traditional parental gender roles implicit in this post. The reality is that people and families are incredibly diverse. I feel the idea that there are natural or normal parental roles does a disservice to people who don't fit in those roles; it implies they are somehow "abnormal". It also does a disservice to those families who do not have a traditional mother/father set-up: many families are single parent households, same-sex parent households, etc.
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28 KJV
Writing in the fourteenth century of Christ as Mother was quite a profound thing to do, especially when, at that time, imagery of God was specifically masculine. True, God is genderless, but we nonetheless need these images in order to understand and appreciate the depth and limitlessness of God and to expand our understandings of who God is. We see through a glass darkly and do the best we can given our cultural epochal differences.
Good for you, Simon. As much as my head and heart believes that, there are still decades of habit that I fight all the time. I applaud you; I do have a hard time conceiving of any being that is genderless. But I'm always working on it. And joyfully!
I voted for Julian. It turned out to be not at all knee-jerk as I had thought. The essays were inspiring and led to my reflecting on my vote. In the end it was the teeny, "insignificant" hazelnut that solidified my vote for Julian. Constance did enormous good works in the name of the Lord. Many of us can't live up to that and we feel very small, but God loves us all the same. now ... GO JULIAN!
I miscarried my only pregnancy, when my child was too tiny to be discerned. A hazelnut indeed! She is in heaven with her heavenly father/mother, who never ceased to love her, and I will someday know her there! Thank you both for your wonderful writing. I keep on voting for Lady Julian.
I am so sorry for your loss.
❤️
Had to go with Julian of hazelnut fame this round. I can't explain why I experience this sureness of vision, but when we reach the Final Four round, voting suddenly becomes clear, as though I were being Spirit-led. And yes, Margery Kempe had a hand in this, as I've been teaching her lately in one of my classes.
It was a hard choice...could the saints who lost in really close contests be on next year's list??
Saints can return, but they have to sit on the bench for a couple of years. Both Dietrich and Julian were contenders in previous years.
Julian for the Halo!
I do wish this weren't so widely regarded as a choice, or contest, between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. As John of Concord and Gloria have suggested above the dichotomy, useful as far as it goes, becomes problematic when applied across the board or to individuals. Sister Constance may or may not have been a contemplative or a mystic, but her wonderful works were surely grounded in a deep inner spirituality. Nor is it likely that Lady Julian lacked appreciation of, and gratitude for, the active Christians to whose life she herself had not been called.
In fact -- though I'm far from expert -- I don't know of a single mystic of whom that could be said, and my impression is that they see their prayer as supporting the work of their active counterparts; not to mention that prayer, especially the pure kind, is terribly hard work, as has also been pointed out. Certainly this paragon of neither finds elementary good works much easier than focused prayer.
My vote today will go to Julian because she is unique: Without her witness the Church, and especially the Anglican corner of it, would be spiritually depleted without ever recognizing its own impoverishment. Constance is a truly glorious example but not unique, thanks be to God as to both; and a vote for Julian is in no sense a vote against her.
(Please restore the comma I so rashly deleted at the last minute after "above" in the second sentence.)
Julian for me , and a tip of my hat to the SEC for catching the cheaters. Cast them into the outer darkness (till Easter Vigil) until they repent and learn to vote only once!
Constance has certainly earned her place in Heaven and the communion of saints. But Julian won her place in my heart years ago. So it's Team Julian today and always.
Today, Memphis is famous for its #gritgrind attitude, largely due to the Grizzlies Team and my man Tony Allen. But 140 years ago, the healing work and dedication of Sister Constance and those she led was its own #gritgrind story. I have been to the annual Martyrs' service; I've heard the letters from the nuns and others at the time. From their words, you hear that Constance made her choice, a hard but definite choice, to do the work of Christ in our city that was not her home by birth or upbringing. She and the others who stayed, like recently ordained Fr. Schuyler, gave their life into God's hands for his use, believing in the cause of Christ's work and in "the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." She saw the city around her change. She saw people around her change, the faces of her friends and colleagues struck in turn by the fatal illness. So we remember them and honor their faithful sacrifice. Our baptismal covenant asks, "Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?" In life, Constance answered, "I do." In death, she met God with "Alleluia" on her lips. She was not yet 30 years old.
I saw the vote suddenly rise to 50/50 and th0ught that was very odd. I remember last year when Brigid "magically" caught up and surpassed Francis. The problem with voter fraud with respect to saints (there are SO MANY problems with that) is that it breaks the hearts of that saint's supporters, who fervently hope that their saint will win honestly. And surely the saint herself (whether Brigid or Constance) would want that. Voter fraud hurts the hearts of the people who most want that saint to win. And that's unsaintly. It's thoughtless and unkind.
Voter fraud !!!! How sad when this should all be in fun !!! ALL our Saints were remarkable and my prayer is that I even though I will never reach their heights, perhaps I will be able to make some small impact while on this earth.
What continues to recommend "mother" and "father" to those of us who understand God to be gender less is their immediacy. If we were remotely as touched by "parent," we'd switch to it in a heartbeat, I think; but it leaves us cold, and English has no other word.
(An interesting little department of linguistics deals with the involuntary conveyance of information that is irrelevant to what is being said, because the structure or vocabulary of the language requires it. In western languages where all nouns have grammatical gender it's often impossible to mention something without disclosing its physical gender, if it has one. In English, where nouns no longer have gender, we get one free pass before normal usage demands the use of a pronoun, which is why the repetition of nouns such as "God" to avoid choosing a pronoun sounds odd. The pattern is so firmly fixed in our Anglophone minds that many of us are surprised to learn that in Turkish, for instance, where neither nouns nor pronouns have gender, the introduction of physical gender into a discourse is usually voluntary and occurs only if and when gender becomes relevant. That difference isn't because Turkish culture is any less sexist than ours; it's purely a grammatical accident that nonetheless has a certain effect on how one thinks and imagines.)
Thank you Lent Madness for introducing me to these two beautiful saints. Still pondering my vote - it's too hard to choose.
The essays are especially beautiful today! Thank you so much!
Julian's image of the hazelnut encompassing God's "view" of the world---including the universe--- is stunning. Our 21st century view of all things: quarks, Hubble photos, gravity waves,...cell phones..., doesn't change the hazelnut metaphor. Our God is an AWEsome God. The more we learn about the "stuff of the hazelnut", the more amazing God seems.
Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth stand in awe of him! Psalm 96:9
Julian gave up on life and walled herself away from having to deal with the everyday struggles people face. She made others care and provide for her, rather than having to fend for herself. Constance got into the thick of life and worked to the end, not only to support herself, but to support her entire community. Why is everyone so enthralled with Julian?
Might I suggest you read Veronica Mary Roth's fine biography on Lady Julian? "Julian's Gospel" is a great in depth study of Julian and her times. Very inspiring companion to Lady Julian's Revelations.
That would be Veronica Mary Rolf.
Thank you for the suggestion. I look forward to reading it.
No exactly the Julian story, to be sure. She was given by her parents, probably because she was an extra outh to feed. The way I heard the accout, way bck when, was that she asked to walled off from the community so she wouldn't be "bothered" by the monks and brothers. I dunno, I wasn't there but that's the way I heard it.
Thank you also. I read "Amazing Grace" (about William Wilberforce and his battle against the slave trade) as a result of the discussion back when he was in contention. Very interesting and informative!
If it's not too late: my iPad has done this too. Since, when it does record my vote, it does not let me vote again, I assume the spinning ball means 'the LentMadness server isn't answering me', and proceed thus: reload the page, and vote if the buttons are there for you to touch. If there are no 'vote' buttons, your vote was counted.
I so agree with you. Wonderful woman, Julian. When plague hit, one of these saints walled herself in and was fed, clothed and cared for by the people around her; the other fed, cleaned, dressed, and died for the people she and her companions cared for unstintingly, even unto death. Go CONSTANCE!
Casting my vote for Constance for she did go (or stay) and contributed to realizing that which Julian wrote... in the making if all things well.
Voted my one vote for the martyrs Constance and Companions. I would have wished for a yellow-fever final between her and Absalom Jones. I guess it will be between two prisoners -- one voluntary, the other valorous. Which of these four is not like the other. Which of these four doesn't belong. Can you tell which saint is not like the others, the one for whom a win would be wrong?
I wouldn't dare reply in kind, but it did occur to me that this year each of the Four really, really deserved to be there.
Maybe I missed it in previous comments, but I'd love to know more about the second work of art in Constance's write-up.
Also, for the second time, I have been knocked off the fence by the ethereal stained glass depicting a LM contestant, though the sculpture of St. Julian conveys great benevolence, too. I am just sucker for tender portraits of good people swathed in heaven's blue light.