Why is this day unique in the annals of Lent Madness 2017? It is the ONLY non-weekday battle of the season. Yes, we're amazing at math. Thus the first Saturday of every season includes the one and only weekend battle of Lent Madness (trust us - we've done the math).
Yesterday Henry Beard Delany romped to a first round victory over Aelred of Rievaulx 78% to 22%. He'll go on to face the winner of Anselm of Canterbury vs. Florence Nightingale in the Saintly Sixteen.
Enjoy your Sunday devotions on the First Sunday in Lent (make sure to tell everybody at coffee hour just how much you love Lent Madness) and we'll get back to voting first thing Monday Morning as John Wycliffe takes on Moses the Black!
Isaac the Syrian
Isaac the Syrian, also know as Isaac of Nineveh, was born around 630 in eastern Arabia. At a young age he entered a monastery, where he dedicated himself to asceticism—a practice of withdrawing from the world in order to build a deeper spiritual life. Having spent countless hours studying in the monastery’s library, he became a renowned theologian.
After spending years as a monk, Isaac was consecrated Bishop of Nineveh, but he didn’t enjoy his new office and abdicated five months later. He then relocated to the wilderness of Mount Matout, where he lived as a hermit in solitude for many years. It is said that he ate only three loaves of bread and some uncooked vegetables each week. Old and blind, he eventually retired to the Assyrian monastery of Shabar in Mesopotamia, where he died and was buried.
Isaac was a prolific writer whose sermons about the inner spiritual life and the work of the Holy Spirit are considered key to understanding asceticism in the early church. His manuscripts in Syrian Arabic have survived for many centuries in Greek, Arabic, and Russian translations. His teachings about God’s providence, faith, prayer, obedience, and neighborly love have inspired generations of Christians and continue to be translated and published in many languages.
Because he avoided weighing in on the theological debates of his day, he is venerated and appreciated in many different Christian traditions, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Syriac Orthodox Church, and the (non-Chalcedonian) Oriental churches. His feast is celebrated on January 28.
Collect for Isaac the Syrian
God of unsearchable wisdom, we thank you for the spirited life of our brother Isaac the Syrian, who wrote and prayed in companionship with you alone. Help us, like Isaac, relentlessly seek your wisdom and adore your face as you show it to us in the faces of our neighbors, family, friends, and all those who may be different from us. Amen.
Mechtild of Magdeburg
Born to a wealthy Saxon family around 1210, Mechtild of Magdeburg received the first of the daily visions that would come to her for the rest of her life at the tender age of 12. She called these her divine “greetings” from the Holy Spirit.
Leaving her family in 1230 “in order to dwell in the love of God,” she joined a Beguine community in Magdeburg, Germany. These intentional communities of the faithful stressed imitation of Christ’s life through religious devotion, voluntary poverty, and care of the poor and sick.
Dwelling in community in Magdeburg for forty years, Mechtild received spiritual instruction from the Dominicans. Mechtild’s confessor, Heinrich von Halle, encouraged her to write down her spiritual experiences and visions. From about 1250 until 1270, she wrote six of her seven volumes series, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (The Flowing Light of the Godhead).
Mechtild’s descriptions of her daily visions are filled with passion. Besides being written by a woman when most women were neither literate nor educated, Mechtild composed her work in middle-low German while most religious literature was being written in Latin.
Mechtild’s devotional poetry is reminiscent of both love poetry and folk songs. Her books offer an account of the ecstatic, passionate experience of personal daily greetings from the Holy Spirit, in addition to her courageous condemnation of vices practiced by the clergy of her day. Mechtild’s writings were distributed widely during her lifetime and brought her much criticism— but her work was also deeply admired by and influential for other medieval mystics. Her writings indicate that Mechtild’s life was complicated by serious illnesses. In approximately 1270, blind and living alone, she was taken in by the convent of Helfta near Eisleben for the final years of her life. While in this community, the nuns cared for her, and she dictated her seventh book.
The exact date of her death in the late 1200s is unknown. Around 1290, Dominican friars of the Halle community translated the first six of her books into Latin. The feast of Mechtild of Magdeburg is November 19.
Collect for Mechtild of Magdeburg
Almighty God, we praise you for your servant, Mechtild of Magdeburg, through whom you have called the church to its tasks and renewed its life. Raise up in our own day teachers and prophets inspired by your Spirit, whose voices will give strength to your church and proclaim the reality of your reign, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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252 comments on “Isaac the Syrian vs. Mechtild of Magdeburg”
Each of these saints would likely, by today's biases & cultural standards , be considered mentally unstable. Each one had to (or was called to) retreat in order to find their 'normal' selves. And thank God they did -to maintain their individual sanity and to enable God to use their gifts of discernment & writing. Both are inspiratio to the ongoing communion of faithful people. Hard choice between these two.
I voted for Isaac because he knew how important it is to be alone with God to know him. And because I study to help me understand things, I really admire his scholarship.
Being a women, She not only became educated, unheard of of women in that time, but wrote so her people could learn as well, My Dad often told we six children," knowledge is no good if we do not share it". To me she was a great example of that.
There's Oliver!
Admiration for the Beguines leads me to vote for Mechtild.
"The flowing light of the Godhead". What a lovely concept! Mechtild it is!
This one was tough for me, but I ultimately chose Mechtild because she had other facets in her life than the call to retreat. But Isaac resonated with me, too.
Let's hear it for the Beguines! Let the fire that was once a flame remain an ember!
This was a hard choice. I really liked Isaac, but Mechtild had quite a life.
I had never heard of either of these folks. I guess that is because they lived simple, humble lives and were not martyred. And I suppose learning about them is the point of this exercise. Voted for Mechtild -- have to pick activism over contemplation.
Mechtild of Magdeburg; care of the sick and poor balanced with a contemplative-creative life seems like an excellent way to live.
To have experienced the freedom and ability to write and share your inner thoughts, to care for the sick and needy and to live life in the company of your fellow man with all its challenges in the 13th century make Mechtild the obvious winner for me.
Voted for Isaac. So much of the rich Syrian, Arabic tradition of Christianity needs to be brought to the fore in these days so that we do not live out of prejudice.
SEC or PC?
Tough choice for me. I love that Isaac steered clear of divisive theological arguments and instead cut to the heart of the message. But I'll plump for Mechtild because I can't resist a holy poet., especially when her works echo love poems and folk songs.
The name Mechtild means "mighty in battle". From Beth Lewis' description, I would not have used "mighty" as a descriptor, however when I read that she called Cathedral clergy "goats", I changed my mind.
Care for the poor and sick. Enough said.
Isaac gets my vote today. He understood his relation to God so well that he promptly abdicated a position of (worldly) honor that got in the way of that relationship. That's courage and dedication.
Indeed!
Hard choice today...both seem exceptional. I voted for Mechtild because she was a woman.
I voted for Mechtild. I love that she called her visions " greetings" of the Holy Spirit. She was an educated and literate woman who wrote about what she believed and experienced. Go Girl!!
This is exactly why I voted for her. I loved that she called her visions "greetings". I've had several dreams in which I've been "greeted" by loved ones who have passed. I cherish these greetings as precious gifts! My maternal grandmother loved humming birds and following her passing I had several attention grabbing encounters with humming birds. Since then humming birds have become a special symbol of her love. Friday morning I had a dream that there was a Robin perched on my kitchen window sill, I said, "well hello there" and then heard a chirp behind me , when I turned to look I was "greeted" by a breathtaking array of hundreds of vibrantly colored humming birds and other birds hovering around my room all looking directly at me. It was so beautiful and very touching! So of course I had to vote for Mechtild of Magdenburg!
Wow. That must have been an incredible dream. We usually forget our dreams. Easy to see why that one stayed with you. Thanks for sharing it.
When I read the two presentations, I was sure Mechtild would win. I will be happy to vote for her in the second round, unless Odo or Theodore should sweep me away. But especially because I thought Isaac would not get very many votes today, I wanted to give him mine. I have a deep respect for contemplatives and earnest students. I agree with many previous comments that he is to be admired for recognizing that he wasn't cut out to be a bishop and resigning. And there are many days that I personally wish I could be a hermit! I'm going to search out some of his writings and learn more from him. Thanks SEC for the introduction (and Hugo, too).
Animal lovers, here's a reason to vote for Isaac of Nineveh by way of a quote from him: What is a charitable heart? It is a heart which is burning with love for the whole creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts … for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is softened and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain being inflicted upon a creature. That is why such a man never ceases to pray for the animals … [He is] … moved by the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united with God.
Wonderful. Though I voted for Mechtild, this makes me grateful for Isaac's life and work. (Besides his amazing cathedral in St Petersburg.) Thank you!
Mechtild, because "she joined a Beguine community in Magdeburg . . . (that) stressed imitation
of Christ's life through religious devotion, voluntary poverty." This helps explain why they began the Beguine.
Brava.
Do not people understand?! Isaac the Syrian is a saint much needed for our time! He is building bridges between different confessions and traditions, helping us to respect each other! A truly ecumenical saint of tolerance!
A tough choice since each was called to a hermit-like life yet influenced many brothers and sisters in Christ who were remote from them in space and time. Mechtild was part of an intentional community that foreshadowed--and may have helped bring into being--the Reformation (which is, for Western Christianity at least, an ongoing process). Isaac of Nineveh has been enormously influential in the Eastern branches of Christianity, to which TEC has been more and more indebted since its founding. I am sorry that their feasts coincide with others already in the BCP Calendar, Isaac's with Thomas Aquinas and Mechtild's with Elizabeth of Hungary. I continue to write saints and other observances into my portable BCP/NRSV traveling (and stay at home). Lent Madness has supplied many occasions for reforming my worship--and that's a good thing!
We are to live in the world, yet not be of the world. He did not live in the world-he escaped it. That is why he did not get my vote
I voted for Isaac the Syrian because 1. I think it is important to support Syrians, especially during these times. 2. Our pastor during our Ash Wednesday service led "group discussion sermon" about the traditions and practices of Lent. One of the "40" things that mentioned was that it took Jonah 40 days to cross Nineveh.
I voted for Isaac on the strength of the collect, a beautiful prayer. Thank you celebrity blogger. On their saintly merits alone, I'd have voted for Mechtild. So, I'm a winner either way, today.
This is a really tough one for me. I want to vote for a Syriac Christian. I am very interested in the eastern branches of Christianity that never became part of a church-state unit, such as Roman Xity. They had a much tougher time in history and are worth our knowing about. Part of our general confession (just made at Ash Wednesday) is our lamentation at our collaboration and tepid collusion with the powers of the day, our failure to act for justice. So Xians who have had to adapt, struggle, go underground have my sympathy. But the Beguines were a major women's movement (and men's) pre-Reformation, and I always want to support women mystics as well. I'm troubled by the role of the Dominicans in Mechtild's story. Though a preaching order, they were heavily involved in the Inquisition. Still, it's a reminder that medieval women had to tread carefully to be accepted at all. I'm voting for Mechtild and hope to support non-western Christians again in the future.
Reading these thoughtful comments is a joy of Lent Madness.
After that quote about the animals and all creation, I wish I had voted for Isaac! But, oh well, only one vote. Anyway, I have always been fascinated by Mecthild and the Beguines.
Although I voted for Mechtild, I also thought the quote about the animals was beautiful and decided to make a document I can refer back to which also included Mechtild's poem.
All-in for Isaac the Syrian, ascetic, renowned theologian/prolific writer and hermit: [while translations vary, check this out:] “A handful of sand, thrown into the sea, is what sinning is, when compared to God’s Providence & mercy. Just like an abundant source of water is not impeded by a handful of dust, so is the Creator’s mercy not defeated by the sins of His creations.”
So gorgeous! Thank you. That just made me tear up!