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!”
I nominate Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. An amazing man whose tireless efforts helped bring peace to a racially divided nation!
Yes
He's still alive!
Jerome
Hannah Grier Coome
Columba
Edmund James Park
Catherine of Siena
I nominate Bruno Groning. Please see this linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Gr%C3%B6ning.
There is no question but this was a man of God. Against much resistance, he managed to hold out his faith in God as the healer, not himself, when healing thousands of people.
His healing continues to this day, according to many followers of his message of God being the healing force.
I nominate Pauli Murray, the first black woman ordained in the Episcopal Church. She was a tireless worker for women's rights, equality for blacks and all who were marginalized. See The New Yorker, April 17, 2017. I believe that she is a Saint (more than saint which we all are). The article in the New Yorker is interesting and powerful.
Bishop Frederic Baraga, the 'Snowshoe Priest.' (If you choose those, ask me about some local lore; I grew up with the Shrine of the Snowshow Priest lurching over the cliffs between my town and another on the shores of Lake Superior.)
Florence Li Tim Oi
Benedict of Nursia
Thomas Merton
Henri Nouwen
Polycarp
William Temple
St. Brendan of Clonfert. "Brendan the Navigator." I nominate him because of his strength, adventurous spirit, witness to Christ in others and because we need a good Irish Saint to win the Golden Halo.
Lucretia Mott
Antoinette Brown Blackwell, first ordained woman 1860's in upstate New York (Congregational) Check out the story of how she got her theological education. (Sister in law to first woman doctor in US)
Fred Rogers --- yes another fan
George Fox
Julia Ward Howe
Anna Jarvis
Ann Reeves Jarvis
St. Mary of Egypt
Holy Martyr Photina (the Samaritan woman at the well)
St. Seraphim of Sarov
St. Cuthbert
St. Peter the Aleut
St. Herman of ALaska
Echo St. Photina
Dorothy Day
Thomas Merton
John Donne
Sophie Scholl
Woman at the Well -- Saint Photini: http://www.antiochian.org/st-photini-samaritan-woman
St. Teresa of Kolkata
Mother Teresa
St Athanasius of Alexandria
St. Rose of Lima
St. Botolph!
Jonathan Daniels marched with Matin Luther in Selma.
Jonathan Daniels also saved the life of Ruby Sales a young woman of color who has continued to the work of justice and peace for all people. Jonathan was a young Episcopal priest who graduated from EDS
St. Jane Frances de Chantal, martyr
Sergius of Moscow
September 25
St. George
Oscar Romero
Ruth OT
St Thomas NT
St Patrick
Pope John 23rd
Richard Hooker, anglican priest, died 1600. Feast day November 3
Oscar Romero
Pope John XXIII
Ruth OT
St. Thomas NT
St. Patrick
St. Dunstan
Eric Little missonary olympic gold medalist. Martyred in WW2 think chariots of fire guy!!!
Sophie Scholl, Lutheran student executed for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets at her college.
I nominate St. Jane de Chantal. She was an incredible working for Our Lord Jesus as a Visitation of Holy Mary
Sister and eventual Superior. This congregation of women that was co-founded by Jane and Bishop Frances de Sales met the need for women who wanted a life of religious commitment, but due to age and responsibilities of childcare and extended family were not able to enter a more austere community. In this somewhat austere living the women were able to become prayerful women of God as semi-monastics while extending works of charity to the poor. Jane continued her service to God founding new houses and carrying on the Salesian charism in it;s manifestation of Visitation Order. My religious Community, The Sisters of St. Gregory has much the same charism serving in the world, but not of it.
I would like to second or third a nomination for Fred Rogers. He left a legacy of kindness for children and families. Early educators are still influenced by his work and the organization which carries on his work.
Father Michael Mcgivney founder Knights of Columbus on fast track to Saint hood
St. Cyprian of Carthage
I nominate
1) Elizabeth of the Trinity
2) Columba Marmion