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!”
Hilda of Whitby
Leonidas Polk
Fr. Hesburgh (Was it he who said, "The greatest gift a father can give his children is ito love their mother.")
Simone Weil (that close to becoming a Christian!)
Cardinal Lustiger
St. Edith Stein
St, John Vianney (tried to revive the Church after the French Revolution)
St. Stephen
Pauli Murray
Phyllis Tickle - a modern-day prophet and visionary
Fred Rogers (he's probably not on a calendar, but should be!)
William Gordon, Bishop of Alaska
I would like to nominate St. Francis Solano (16th century). He was a Franciscan friar who practiced strict habits of poverty. After much ministry in Spain, he was sent to South America where he was an effective evangelist among the indigenous peoples. He has a wonderful church and monastery dedicated to him in Lima Peru. One tale of his life is that he entered a gathering one Christmas Eve and played his fiddle with such joy that soon everybody there was dancing and celebrating.
I would also mention Ananias of Damascus. I don't know whether Biblical figures are required to be on an official list of saints. But I just love Ananias. God told him to go minister to a fellow named Saul and Ananias said, "Um . . . are you sure? Isn't that the guy who's here with letters to arrest us all?" But when God was definite about those instructions, Ananias went to the house and greeted his enemy with, "Brother Saul!" Wish I had that same enthusiastic compliance to God's will.
I would also like to second (or fifth, or whatever) the nominations for Chief Seattle.
Dymphna, patron saint of mental illness
Bill Wilson, founder of AA & both deeply flawed and also incredibly gifted
And I second Margaret Sanger!
Amma Syncletica, or one of the other Desert Ammas. Thank you for asking!
St. Jarlath!
Matthias
Former PB John Hines, who led the Episcopal Church toward living what we preach.
Edith Cavell WW1 nurse and martyr
To the many great nominees so far, I’d like to add:
Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska
Blessed Charles de Foucauld
Venerable Matt Talbot
Pope Saint John XXIII
Christian de Chergé (whose beatification process is in its early stages)
John Bunyan
John Calvin
Thomas Traherne
I have just finished teaching about the Nanjing Massacre in Dec, 1937- March 1938. I nominate Miss. Wilhelmina "Minnie" Vautrin. She was head of the Education department and Dean of Student's at Ginling Women's Arts and Science College in Nanjing. She was a member of the United Missionary Association and is noted for her courage in protecting thousands of young women from Japanese soldiers and for her diary of the events in Nanjing that historians believe will eventually be recognized much like the diary of Anne Frank, for its importance of illuminating the spirit of a single witness during a holocaust or war. December 2017 will be he 80th anniversary of the Rape of Nanking and it is my belief that the Supreme Committee needs to add this outstanding Christian to the mix.
Dorothy Day
Henri Nouwen
J.S. Bach
Sadhu Sundar Singh
William J Seymour (of the Azusa Street Revival)
Hilda of Whitby
Hildegard von Bingen
Dag Hammarskjold
Henri Nouwen
Saint Jude is my nomination
The Reverend Glenn "Tex" Evans. Methodist Minister and founder of Appalachia Service Project.
Florian, Roman soldier, patron saint of firefighters and horses, lots of kitschy stuff, just look in any firefighters museum, can be paired off with the patron saint of police officers for the match between civil servant's patrons
Belle Harris Bennett
I nominate John Muir, who, like John the Baptist, cried out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, and
Thurgood Marshall, a Justice Supreme
Pauli Murray
https://today.duke.edu/2012/07/saintmurray
John Milton
Die He, or Justice must!
Saint André of Montreal, was a lay brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross and a significant figure of the Roman Catholic Church among French-Canadians, credited with thousands of reported miraculous healings associated within his pious devotion to Saint Joseph.
BTW, on the subject of nominations congratulations to Scott on being selected to the final group of candidates for the position of Bishop of Delaware.
Yes
Bishop Henry Whipple.
Amazing work with Native Americans. Went to bat to President Abraham Lincoln for the Dakota who were going to hung (after corrupt trials) and for the overall treatment of American Indians in Minnesota. Still very revered by Native Peopke and he has a long reaching legacy. And he built the first church in the Episcopal Church in the US designed as as a Cathedral which will be 150 years old in 2019.
Please consider Eglantyne Jebb, in the Anglican (GB) list of saints and special people. She is celebrated on December 17th.
Apart from having a great name, she started the charity 'Save the Children' after dealing with post WW1 children in (I think) concentration camps in Austria. She also wrote the original definition of the 'Rights of the Child' that was later adopted by the United Nations.
Thank you, have a happy choosing time
Yours Brixham Beth
For consideration by the SEC, I recommend the following individual saints for your 2018 Lent Madness:
Karl Barth
Edith Cavell
Thomas Cranmer
St Margaret of Scotland
Henri Nouwen
Fred Rogers
Kateri Tekawitha
I nominate Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati, the great Indian social reformer, champion for the emancipation of women, and pioneer in education. Her work on behalf of women was revolutionary, and even reached the ears of Queen Victoria. She is honored as a saint in the Episcopal Church on April 5.
Elizabeth Ferard - first deaconness in the Anglican Communion
St. Maximilian (c. 274-295 CE)
He was a martyr whose trial transcript was preserved. Son of a veteran, he was presented by his father as a “volunteer” in the Roman army under Diocletian and Maximian. He refused to serve due to his Christian faith: “You know very well what soldiers do.” Offered the choice of service or death; responded: “I shall not perish…” He asked his father to give his new clothes to his executioner. He became an early example of a Christian “conscientious objector”
Pauli Murray - a winner for sure!