668 comments on “Nominationtide has arrived!”

1. St. Martin of Tours, because his faith journey has mirrored my own.
   It is said, that with his sword, he cut his cloak down the middle to share with an unclothed beggar.

2. Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell ---first ordained woman in 1885. Congregational/UCC churches do not have a formal list of saints but we do give out the Antoinette Brown Blackwell award at General Synod for outstanding woman clergy. A side note, her sister Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman doctor.

3. Abba Moses the Ethiopian (circa 330-405). His story is one of the most amazing in the early Church. A very large, strong man, he was originally a slave who was kicked out of his masters household for bad conduct. He then became the leader of a marauding band of robbers. Until he met a gentle and compassionate and kind monk. And Moses was touched instantly. Perhaps this was the first time he had encountered kindness like this. He became one of the great spiritual leaders in Egypt and a man of remarkable wisdom, humility, and compassion who deeply loved God and others. He is an excellent role model for all of us.

4. I am nominating Gudmunder The Good, bishop of Iceland. He opposed the accumulation of new wealth of landed chieftains. He also preferred to share whatever revenues the church had with the poor and needy. Taken from the notation on him at The Saga Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland.

   1. Good one!

5. Father Damien of Kalaupapa. He gave his life tocare for those banned to the Leper Colony.

6. Rev. Hugh Binning who died at 26. But accomplished the following: by 13 people in Scotland searched him out to discuss God and religious issues. By 14 he was in college. By 19 he was the chair of the University of Glasgow’s philosophy deapratment and A prifessir and diction of philosophy. By 20 he was a lawyer. By 21 he was ordained in the Church of Scotland. More than 40 of his sermons survive today. His style was to speak plainly in English so all could understand. He is in the Scottish preachers Hall of a Fame. He wrote more than a dozen books, including Christian Love. You can buy his books on Amazon and download his sermons. In the turbulent 1650s he met and confronted the dictator Oliver Cromwell, and outwitted Cromwell and his Puritan ministers face to face, confounding them with his grasp of theology. He was part of 5be clergy who stood up to Cromwell about religious freedom and the suspicions about Cromwell’s army. Cromwell said after meet Rev Binning, that he is ally’s named because w3 are all bound by his words after he speaks, while placing his hands on his sword. He died a5 26 of TB, leaving a widow and a son. He is listed as a Scottish Philosopher and Theologian, with many many thoughtful quotes and writings.

7. I would like to nominate St. Josaphat. He may be legendary, but he was quite a good fellow. In fact, he turns out to have been Gautama Buddha all along! Revered by Western and Eastern Christians as well as Buddhists, he is a very ecumenical saint, and besides, he's got a kind of funny name.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlaam_and_Josaphat

8. I would like to nominate St. Alldhelm of Malmesbury.
   Aldhelm was the Abbot of Malmesbury who instituted Benedictine rule there and allowed the community to elect the Abbot themselves. He was a scholar recognized by (the Venerable) Bede and identified by Bede as "erudite", which I commend as no small feat!
   A recent book by author George Dempsey recounts the life and influence of this frequently overlooked saint of late antiquity. His writings influenced kings including his 101 riddles in Latin hexameters. A recent book by Anglo -Saxon scholar George Dempsey describes the influence of this relatively unknown saint in late antiquity and the concerns of the tim. Bede ir recognized by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches.

   One of the things I love most about Lent Madness is learning about those lesser known saints of the church. Aldhelm qualifies!

9. I would like to nominate Roswitha/Hroswitha, a 10th century German nun who wrote plays about saintly people, usually ones who died for their faith. Her works may have been the only dramas written in Europe between the fifth century and the fifteenth!

10. Hildegard von Bingen. Her music positively makes my soul soar. I know, abbess, mystic, etc. But her MUSIC is truly divine.

11. Toyohiko Kagawa - A pacifist who believed in Christianity through actions, not words. He attempted to personally stop Japan and the US from fighting. Apologized for Japan's occupation. He wrote over 100 books, was a pioneer in forestry and was nominated twice for Nobel prizes in literature and twice for peace.

    1. I second this nomination! Kagawa was also a strong advocate for economic justice, a community activist and evangelist who lived among poor people, a labor organizer, a poet, a novelist, and a pioneering environmentalist through his work on land use and agricultural forestry— and he embedded all of his political, economic, literary, and scientific work in a deeply Trinitarian spirituality. A Japanese convert to Christianity, Kagawa modeled and taught a “lived Christianity” to millions of twentieth-century Christians throughout the world. Listed on the ELCA calendar of saints— and his commemoration day is today, April 23! I mean really, this is providential, isn’t it? Plus the guy loved trees. Who could ask for anything more?

12. I nominate Saint Frumentius, bishop, confessor and apostle to Ethiopia. He brought Christianity to the Axumite Kingdom and is the father of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. This remarkable saint, a Greek Christian from Tyre, was captured as a slave and served the royal family of Axum. He ended up converting the king and went to Alexandria to request missionaries. St. Athanasius saw he was the right man for the job and sent him back to Ethiopia as bishop. Frumentius is recognized by the Ethiopian Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Coptic churches.

13. I would like to nominate St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was an Episcopalian before she became Roman Catholic and founded the Sisters of Charity. She established the first Catholic Girls School in the USA. She died in 1821 at the age of 46 and canonized on September 14, 1975.

14. St. Afta! From hooker to holy, and either burned or beheaded.

15. I'd like to nominate Corrie ten Boom, who has been honored by Israel as "Righteous Among the Nations." While not an actual sainthood, the Righteous are honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in the United States on 16 July.

    I'd also like to say that the list of folks generated here, whether or not they ever make it into Lent Madness, is a great source of names for future study groups.

    1. Corrie ten Boom is a great choice!

    2. I agree! Martin Luther King. He is as close to a prophet in my life time that I will probably ever experience.

    3. I was considering her as well. Is that official, that the Righteous among the Nations qualify?

       1. I don't know. I went out on a limb because I found that they have their own Feast Day - but that's for the whole group of Righteous. It will be up to the Honorable SEC to decide if any particular individual within the list of the Righteous are able to share bracket-space with the Blessed and Sainted.

          What do you say, SEC?

16. I nominate Sarah Josephs Buell Hale, 1788-1879, prophetic Witness in the Episcopal church, feast day April 30, An early supporter for women's rights, the mother of Thanksgiving.

17. I would like to nominate Nicodemus. He along with Joseph of Arimathea where the two brave men who asked for Jesus' body after the crucifixion to prepare it for burial. This took courage on their part as ost would have feared being arrested.

18. Mother Teresa (Saint Teresa of Calcutta). She founded the Missionaries of Charity and professed the vow to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor."

19. I nominate DAMIEN THE LEPER. He was the Belgian priest, missionary to Hawaii, who went to live in the leper colony on Molokai. He devoted his life to their pastoral care, greatly improving their living conditions. He contracted the disease himself, and died a leper. He is a real example of living the Gospel. He gave his life for these rejected and forgotten people.
    Sr. Patricia Angela Jones, AF

20. Sophie Scholl, willingly martyred for resisting the Nazi regime. I think she may be in process for RC commemoration, and I found her commemorated by a calendar set forth on an ecumenical website, but was not able to confirm an official observance. Hoping! The Orthodox Church canonized one of her colleagues.

    1. The White Rose Story is a moving
       one. I would single out her brother Hans, as well.

21. I nominate St. Ansgar, or Anskar, 9th century 801-865--Apostle of the North. A Benedict monk, missionary, visionary, and in the end an Archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, Ansgar initiated Christian missions to Denmark and Sweden, founded a monastery and schools, saw much of his work undone, but never lost his faith, or love of God. Brave, courageous, survivor of piratical and Viking attacks, fed by visionary experiences of Our Lady, and contemplation of the divine, he persisted. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/anskar.asp

    1. His feast day is Feb.3rd.

22. Eric Liddell, the Olympic athlete ("Chariots of Fire") and missionary to Japan is an amazing example of doing right instead of doing what is easy or expected. His fame is from his running, but his mission work, which included time in a prison camp, is inspiring. A truly dedicated and humble servant of the Lord.

    1. Second

    2. Liddell was a missionary to CHINA, during the Japanese occupation of China. Although annexed by the Japanese, the Japanese never considered China a part of 日本国 (Nihon-koku) and neither should we. Obviously the Chinese also never considered their country a part of Japan either.

23. I nominate Christina the Astonishing, patron saint of people with mental illness.

24. Great choice! We tend to forget about her.

25. I nominate Bishop Charles Henry Brent: Bishop of the Diocese of Western New York, founder of St.Andrew's Church in Buffalo NY, Missionary Bishop of the Philippines Chaplain to the American Expeditionary Forces,and for twenty years he worked for Christian Unity. He was fired by his Bishop for putting candles on the altar at St. Andrew's. A truly wonderful human being.

26. Please consider St. Yared, who is recognized by the Ethiopian Church for creating their musical tradition, and composing service music that is still used in worship today. The Ethiopian Church of SS Mary and Gabriel worship in our space, and the music is is as transporting as their incense.

27. I nominate Billy Graham. He may not yet be on official lists of saints, but Lent Madness could be on the cutting edge of saint-defining by bending the rule a little here. 🙂 He humbly yet boldly proclaimed the good news of God to more people than anyone else in history - over 100 million. He lived with integrity as he stood before Presidents and Kings and called them to repentance and faith, and while navigating the choppy waters of our times.

28. Benedict of Nursia. "Listen with the ear of your heart."

29. I nominate Angelo Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, canonized by the RC church in 2014 and whose Feast Day is celebrated on October 11, the date that was the first day of the first session of the Second Vatican Council.

    I nominate this disciple of Christ because he responded faithfully to the voice of God and did something for the church universal that no one expected or thought possible. He was elected as pope after the long tenure of Pius XII and was chosen by the cardinals in part because they wanted someone who would be a caretaker until the next pope could be elected. They did not believe he would do anything during his pontificate and then he called the church into Council! He asked the bishops of the church to look at the "signs of the times" and reform the church to meet the needs of the Modern World. There are two documents on the church and the second one and later one, Gaudium et Spes does just that. This council emphasized the importance of Holy Scripture and collaboration with scholars of multiple traditions in translation, biblical scholarship, etc. has been the fruit. Ecumenical dialogue was encouraged by Roncalli and Roman Catholics began to enter with others into dialogue thus furthering a movement that had already begun. Continued dialogue has brought denominations closer to the point of some being able to repair divisions, for example most recently the Church of England's and the Methodist Church's reunification efforts. And then there is the liturgy. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sancrosanctum Concilium, SCL) was the first document published by the Second Vatican Council. That was possible because of the liturgical movement that took place in the 1940s among ecumenical scholars such as Anglican scholar Dom Gregory Dix, RC scholar Yves Congar (silenced by the RC church until called to serve at Vatican II), among many others. The conversations about the reform of the liturgy had preceded the council, but it was Pope John XXIII who moved those conversations forward. When the Curia wanted to take a conservative approach, Roncalli and others moved for a broader renewal of the liturgy so that liturgy would be the "summit toward which the activity of the church is directed; at the same time, it is the font from which all her power flows." (SCL 10) The full, conscious, and active participation of the fathful in worship was to be the norm by reason of their baptism. (SCL 14) Work towards a common lectionary with other Christian churches would follow the Council and liturgy would get a second look by most demonibations with similar reforms taking place. Recent developments such as removing the filioque addition to the Nicene Creed to bring about reconciliation with our Orthodox sisters and brothers and end a Schism that has lasted close to a thousand years (though not fully realized), is the fruit of what was begun when Angelo Roncalli responded to God and began a work that went beyond what anyone at the time could have asked or imagined.

    And, by the way, this council was the first in which women played a part and, though minor, had a place at the table. (Guests in Their Own House: The Women of Vatican II by Carmel McEnroy)

    I nominate Angelo Roncalli, not because he was a Roman Catholic Pope, but because he was expected to do little and yet did much. He challenges us as Christians to regard the signs of the times to engage the world. He gives hope to those who do not believe that our small efforts can make a difference and he demonstrates that we are indeed called to follow Jesus when we hear his voice and we are to use our gifts in the ways that we are able. For in doing that, we open up the windows of our churches, as he did, to let in the breath of God.

30. I would like to nominate St Rita of Cascia. She is one the greatest saints. She's an incorrupable. I've actually been to Cascia to see her! It's an amazing moment to behold her. She was fearless in doing what she believed God asked of her, and she was literally carried to her convent by Angels! Not to mention she received a Holy stigmata in the form of a thorn.
    Rita was also one of few women who were wife, mother, and nun at different points in her life. She was abused by her husband, lost her children to a family feud, and was denied entrance to the convent several times, but through everything Rita kept her faith and stood strong in her belief. Without doubt one of the most inspirational saints in Glory!