In the fullness of time, the Supreme Executive Committee rests from its Lenten labors and begins accepting nominations for Lent Madness 2018.
In other words...
Welcome to Nominationtide!
For one full week, Tim and Scott will be accepting nominations for Lent Madness 2018. The nominating period will remain open through the evening of Monday, May 22. At which point the window will unceremoniously slam shut.
Please note that the ONLY way to nominate a saint is to leave a comment in this post. Nominations will not be accepted via social media, e-mail, carrier pigeon, brick through a window at Forward Movement headquarters, singing telegram, sky writer, or giant billboard along I-95. Also, at least officially, bribes are discouraged.
As you discern saints to nominate, please keep in mind that a number of saints are ineligible for next year’s “saintly smackdown.” This includes the entire field of Lent Madness 2017, those saints who made it to the Round of the Elate Eight in 2016 and 2015, and those from the 2014 Faithful Four. Needless to say Jesus, Mary, Tim, Scott, and previous Golden Halo Winners are also ineligible. Below is a comprehensive list of ineligible saints. Please keep this in mind as you submit your nominations.
It takes Herculean amounts of shade grown, single-origin coffee for Tim and Scott to put together the Lent Madness bracket.
Also, note that the saints you nominate should be in the sanctoral calendar of one or more churches. When it comes to nominations, the SEC has seen it all over the years: people who are still alive, people who are not Christians, non-humans, etc. While these folks (and animals) may well be wonderful, they are not eligible for Lent Madness. To reiterate, being DEAD is part of the criteria.
As always, we seek to put together a balanced bracket of saints ancient and modern, Biblical and ecclesiastical representing the breadth and diversity of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
And remember that when it comes to saints in Lent Madness, many are called yet few are chosen (by the SEC). So leave a comment below with your (eligible) nomination! The 2018 field of 32 awaits your input.
The Saints of Lent Madness 2017 (all ineligible)
Fanny Crosby
G.F. Handel
Sarah
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Joseph Schereschewsky
Nikolaus von Zinzendorf
Scholastica
Macrina the Younger
Amelia Bloomer
Phillip Melanchton
Franz Jagerstatter
Joan of Arc
Martin Luther
David Oakerhater
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Canterbury
Raymond Nonnatus
John of Nepomuk
Odo of Cluny
Theodore the Studite
Florence of Nightingale
Anselm of Canterbury
Henry Budd
Cecilia
Moses the Black
John Wycliffe
Mechtild of Magdeburg
Henry Beard Delaney
Aelred of Riveaulx
Stephen
Alban
Past Golden Halo Winners (ineligible)
George Herbert, C.S. Lewis, Mary Magdalene, Frances Perkins, Charles Wesley, Francis of Assisi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Florence Nightingale
From 2014 to 2016 (ineligible)
Thecla
Bernard Mizecki
Frederick Douglass
Molly Brant
Egeria
Brigid of Kildare
Columba
Albert Schweitzer
Julian of Norwich
Absalom Jones
Sojourner Truth
Constance
Vida Dutton Scudder
Kamehameha
Phillips Brooks
Lydia
Harriet Bedell
After the SEC culls through the hundreds of nominations at their annual spring retreat, the 2018 Bracket will be announced on All Brackets’ Day (November 3rd).
In the meantime, we wish you all a joyous Nominationtide.
527 comments on “Nominationtide Is Here!”
Saint Isidore the Farmer
John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey and the members of the Oxford Movement. (For the Anglo-Catholics out there.)
Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross
Bayard Rustin
Walter Rauschenbusch, William Carey, Adoniram Judson
I nominate Jonathan Myrick Daniels, seminarian and martyr 1965
He lived the gospel and championed the people, especially civil and voting rights. " the faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown. . . I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord's death and resurrection. . . with them the black men and white men, with all life in him whose name is above all names . . . we are indelibly and unspeakably one"
Truly a saint for our time!
Juan Diego
I nominate Fred Rogers, Pierre Teilhard deChardin, and Dorothy Day.
After weighing comments and careful consideration on my own, I would like to nominate this list:
St. Luke
Henri Nouwen
Margaret of Scotland
Eric Liddell
Raoul Wallenberg
Brother Lawrence
Hildegard von Bingen
Cyril of Alexandria
St.Patrick
John Calvin
Fred Rogers
St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
My husband and I sing sacred choral music in the two groups in which we have sung or continue to sing. When we sang under the direction of the Director of Choral Music at a local university, we performed many such works. Once, the director divided us into men's and women's groups; the women sang one of the works by Hildegard von Bingen. She was a woman light years beyond her time in many ways. Her music is not at all easy to sing. Although we were all tested and tried singers, we could not hold the pitch on this acapella hymn. It took three of the university students, the ones with perfect pitch, to hold a drone note by which the rest of us could sing. (The men got off much easier that time!)
If any of you love to sing, I strongly encourage you to join a Choral Society near you. There is a new one in Estes Park, Colorado, called the Estes Park Oratorio Society if you happen to live in that direction. We don't but are satisfied with the Chorale in our area.
St. Xenia of Saint Petersburg, St. Herman of Alaska, St. Seraphim of Sarov, G.K. Chesterton, Oscar Romero, W.E.B DuBois, Sadhu Sundar Singh (If he isn't on the Episcopal Church list of saints, he should be), Saint Charbel Makhlouf, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Martin Luther King Jr., Bartolome de las Casas, Florence Li Tim-Oi, Thomas Merton, Toyohiko Kagawa, Pandita Mary Ramabai
Can I nominate a Discordian saint? 😀 If so, Emperor Joshua Norton!
Also, if Fred Rogers isn't on any church's calendar of Saints yet, he really ought to be.
I SECOND EMPEROR NORTON LIKE MAD
He did stop a riot once by reciting the Lord's Prayer between the two groups of potential combatants!
Bishop of Delaware? Wow! Congrats indeed, Scott! I hope, if you get the job, it won't mean you'll be leaving the SEC. Actually, it might give you the upper hand over your Archnemesis!
I support all of these nominations!
Dom Helder Camara
Oscar Romero
Ignatius Loyola
Alcuin, Deacon & Abbot of Tours
I would like to nominate Presiding Bishop William White, Bishop John Henry Hobart, Bishop Hugh Latimer, Bishop Nicholas Ridley, Richard Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, John Wycliffe, and last but definitely not least, my hero Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.
MATTEO RICCI, S.J. OCTOBER 6, 1552 - MAY 11, 1610. MISSIONARY TO CHINA. SUCH AN INTERESTING MAN. SHOULD I WRITE MORE ABOUT HIM?
((WHEN SO MANY HAVE READ/SEEN "SILENCE" ABOUT JAPAN. THEY WILL BE AMAZED BY WHAT RICCI DID IN CHINA.))
GENERATION OF GIANTS BY GEORGE H. DUNNE TELLS THE STORY.
THANKS...elb
I nominate Corrie ten Boom who did so much for the Jewish people during WWII. Also I think Martin Luther King Jr is worthy of consideration for Lent Madness 2018.
Good idea. I second corrie, the prisoner . . . And yet, the hiding place. . .
Geert Groote, founder of the Brethren of the Common Life.
Ever here of Thomas Aquinas? Trained in the Brethren.
Also, although the movement didn't survive to 21st century, the Common Life sounds very much like New Monasticism!
Oops.
I meant Thomas a Kempus! Author of Imitation of Christ. Much more readable than Aquinas and more devotional.
Sorry 🙁
Brother Andre!
St Boniface patron saint of Germany
Aidan of Lindisfarne
I nominate Lillian Hunt Trasher, aka "Mother of the Nile" who built an orphanage in Egypt -- literally, from brick she and some of the older children made. From around 1910 to 1961 she cared for nearly 25,000 children and displayed enormous trust in God to provide whatever was needed from day to day, especially food.
I also second the nomination of Jonathan Daniels. Ruby Sales was mentioned as well, but this beautiful woman is still living and thus ineligible.
Nominations for Lent Madness
Justin Martyr circa 165 (defined the faith in the post-apostolic era) and I once read much if his Apology in Greek. His writings are a treasure trove of Church worship practice, biblical interpretation, Jewish-Christian relationships and early patristic logos theology.
Paul Jones, 1941, missionary bishop of Utah, man of conscience persecuted by our own church for his pacifist beliefs (we need to be reminded we can mistreat one of our own)
I'don't be glad to advocate more for either man.
I nominate our oft derided Saint Thomas, AKA the Twin. He wasn't there when Jesus revealed himself to the others, so why the bad rap? His faith was confirmed by empirical evidence. Isn't that a felicitous blend of science and religion?
I nominate:
Thurgood Marshall
Flannery O'Connor
Adoniram Judson
I nominate John Woolman, a Quaker from Mt. Holly, NJ. Gotta keep up the Jersey connections.
I 2nd Oscar Romero, and would like to add Artemisia Bowden, African American educator, founder of St. Philip's College in San Antonio. She was raised to Sainthood in 2015. Go Texas!
Bishop William Hobart Hare
Monnica
Junia
Mother Teresa
Taylor Hudson
Jim Elliot
Woops that's Hudson Taylor not Taylor Hudson
With all the challenges on airlines today, I nominate Joseph of Copertino
I would like to nominate Jane Haining - a Scottish woman who through trying to protect her Jewish Students in Budapest was killed by the Nazi's.
The Rev. John Roberts, whose feast day is February 25. He lived among the Shoshone and Arapaho people on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming for many years, working with them, and living among them even after he retired. http://satucket.com/lectionary/john_roberts.htm. (and we have more information about his ministry in Wyoming.