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”
Mechtild for me. I'd never heard of the Beguines before I took EfM (they were an independent group of lay women so, of course, the men in the Vatican didn't support them). That, alone, would get my vote!
I love doing Lent Madness because I learn about so many saintly people I never heard of before! The match-ups have been hard so far but today's was a bit easier for me. I voted for Mechtild because she wasn't afraid to criticize the corruption in the church. I'm a Catholic about to make my first visit to Rome and the Vatican. I love the current Pope Francis but some of the popes throughout the history of the church have been pretty awful. I am very happy to vote for someone who spoke out about the corruption!!
Blessings to you on your pilgrimage!
I voted for Mechtild because she wrote those books and was encouraged to which was not the norm for a medieval woman.
Tough choice, but voted for Mechtild of Magdeburg for writing in the vernacular at a time few women could read or write and because if being part of the Beguine community was still an option, I'd want to be a part of it.
Did the game Community still exist in Western Europe. I have visited several.
I learn as much from the comments as from the bios presented, if not more! I couldn't not vote for anyone who has the courage to take on the clergy and call them out when she sees fit!!
Right on, sister!
You got me there. I was leaning toward the Syrian for all they are going thru, and add to that to love even demons!
I'm voting for Isaac, in part to honor and support the Syrian people, and also because his feast day is the same as my daughter's birthday.
My vote goes to Mechtild of Magdeburg. I support her for the Golden Halo of 2017!
Just a few updates to the Isaac the Syrian bio. He was born in Qatar which was in the Persian Empire at the time, and spoke Syriac which is an Aramaic dialect, the closest to the language of Jesus. Nineveh is modern Mosul in Iraq. And Isaac is Church of the East, a non-Chalcedonian church, as is the Syriac Orthodox.
Once again I am voting simply based on personal identification. I would hate to be a bishop, and many times I would love to be able to withdraw from the world and spend undistracted time with God. Mechtild is wonderful, but Isaac gets my vote today.
Mechtild, without a doubt! Daily greetings from the Holy Spirit, vs raw veg in the desert? Sorry, Isaac, no contest.
Also, women before men (generally)
What clinched it for me was Mechtild rising above what were then considered impediments (being blind and female) to criticize wayward clerics.
Hmm, ascetic vs. mystic. Tough choice for me, as I am inclined to be neither. In the end I went with Mechtild, for her writing in her own language and for a passion for the daily influence of the Holy Spirit. I also liked the idea that she exposed the vices of the priests...and I doubt they took it kindly! I do give Isaac credit for not taking sides in the theological debates of his time. Wish more of us could concentrate on what beliefs Christ taught us to share and let the rest be in the hands of God.
Ugh. I overlooked the names to vote ( not realizing it wasn't in reading order like the other's ) BUT I am pleased that Mechtild has a higher percentage! Placing one self in poverty and helping the hungry is a 'strong' choice to make, especially for life. As a woman, to write spiritual notes and visions was unheard of for her time. Not knowing Latin did not stop her. So far it has been easy voting for me. Shall see if any different Monday.
A shout-out for Mechtild of whom I think I can safely say is a truly lesser known candidate for the Golden Halo. My vote was based on her being a possible role model for women who longed for opportunities to study and become literate. She also wrote in the vernacular as opposed to the preferred Latin and above all, she had the guts and balls to chastise errant so called "Holy Men." You go, girl! Well, she went...that-a-way !
Thank you for all the comments, especially the quotes from Isaac. I could easily have voted for him, especially after reading those quotes. And I love books and studying about God and sometimes just want to get away from people. But I voted for Mechtild because of her visions. Perhaps I am envious of her daily greetings from God. Plus I like that she ministered to the poor and sick. Tough choice.
I voted for my fellow Syrian. Of course.
And more from Isaac:
"To whatever extent a person draws close to God with his intentions is to what extent God draws close to him with His gifts."
"The mouth which is continuously giving thanks receives blessing from God. In the heart that always shows gratitude, grace abides."
For these (and all the quotes above), it's Isaac for me today.
Live welcoming all - a quote attributed to Mechtild, on a wall cross I once gave as a gift, although it didn't quite mean what I thought it did when I read some of her writings. Still, I'm voting for her.
I voted for Mechtild mostly because she ministered to the sick and poor and stepped way out of the typical role of women of the time. Isaac, while probably brilliant, was definitely not a people person.
I voted for Isaac because of the current troubles in his home area of Nineveh. I believe that the Christians who may be remaining there also revere him.
It's not fair to have to choose between two giants of the church's ascetical tradition in the first round! Nevertheless, Isaac is a no-brainer for me because of his vast ecumenical appeal and because he wrote: "Like a handful of sand thrown into the sea are all the sins of God's creatures compared with the mind of their creator."
Wow! thank you for the wonderful song! I voted for Mechtild. Despite her disabilities,
she persevered on to dictate her last book.
I must admit that the comments helped me to admire both.
Oh, hard for this writer to choose between two writers! Had to go with Isaac, whose feast day is my birthday.
I voted for Isaac the Syrian because I have a heart for Syrians these days and because I have admiration for those who can adhere to asceticism.
I voted for Mechthild because I found a quote of hers that spoke to me: "Prayer is naught else but a yearning of soul ... it draws down the great God into the little heart; it drives the hungry soul up to the plenitude of God; it brings together these two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place where they speak much of love."
Both contenders were equally awesome. But I voted for Mechtild--while she was contemplative she was also activist, and she called the church on it's excesses. That took courage in those days.
And I'd like to give a shout out to our celebrity bloggers--excellent research and you make it all so interesting. Thank you.
Another impossible choice--two great and holy mystics with wonderful legacies of their writings left as gifts to us! I think they are basically equals, but I voted for Isaac as a recognition of the oft-neglected Christian witness and life of the ancient churches of the East, which now struggle desperately to exist, under severe hardship and persecution in the very area where Christian faith began.
Isaac stayed alone while Mechtild spent her life helping others
We voted for Mechtild, but like many it was a difficult choice. The defining factor for me was the difference in approach to God's work. Isaac researched and prayed and wrote. Mechtild read and prayed and wrote and acted. It also took great courage to criticize the clergy.
This was a tough choice. I am learning so much from this! I was surprised when I saw the results, I thought it would be closer
Cause who run the world? Girls! 😉