251 comments on “Happy Nominationtide!”

1. I want to nominate St Mary the Harlot (Episcopal Calendar shows here as Maryam of Qidun Feast Day 30 October).

   Why? I am a male survivor of Sexual Rape - At age 6 and again at age 11. For more years than I care to remember I felt dirty, shamed, hopelessly bound by sin. In fact, I came to believe I WAS the sin. As a former Catholic I search for a possible saint who had been raped and yet still became a saint. Found only one a girl who is considered to be the patron saint of children sexually abused - but guess what, she fought back and was murdered for refusing - I DID NO SUCH THING, without knowing what was going on I let it happen and kept silent for 40 years. So that actually, made me feel worse. So, I kept looking and finally found Saint Mary the Harlot, an anchorite who was seduced by a traveling monk and in her guilt and shame she left her uncle (also an anchorite) and became a prostitute. Her uncle found out, dressed himself as a solider and went to her. He convinced her to return, which she did and ended up with the gift of miracles! That is the short story. I do not have the gift of miracles (as far as I know), but her story brought me a great deal of hope and comfort which God has used to further my healing. I was sinned against, not the sin itself. So, I nominate her, my patron saint.

2. I nominate James Lloyd Breck, known as "The Apostle to the Wilderness".
   An Episcopal priest, educator and missionary in the frontier of Wisconsin, he, along with two classmates, and under the guidance of Jackson Kemper (LM Class of 2024) founded Nashota House, as a seminary, monastic community and a center for theological work. He also founded the St. Columba Mission and a mission school to train clergy for work in Minnesota missions. Working with Bishop Henry Whipple (also the LM Class of 2024) mission school became Seabury Seminary, existing today as Bexley-Seabury Western Seminary in Chicago.

   Our inspiring priest is a product of Nashota House.

3. St. Elizabeth of Hungary (Nov. 19) (1207-1231) is one of the few women canonized in the Middle Ages who was actually married. She is known as `St. Elizabeth of Hungary' in recognition of her birthplace; she was the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary. She was the wife – eventually, the widow – of Landgraf Ludwig of Thuringia. She was well-loved by her husband, not so much by his family, who felt she was spending too much money building hospitals. When Ludwig's advisors complained about her drafts on the treasury, his response tended to be, `Has she alienated any of my property?' `No.' `Well, then, stop kvetching! Elizabeth is doing Good Work, for which there is a crying need, and which will doubtless stand to her & our credit before God!'
   St. Elizabeth was one of several people who were attracted to the Franciscan ideals, but who, being married and having secular careers, were unable to adopt the full Franciscan discipline. In response to their expressions of interest, St. Francis founded the Third Franciscan Order, of which St. Elizabeth is believed to have been one of the inaugural members and is one of the patron saints.

4. I hereby nominate Lucia of Syracuse, more familiarly called St. Lucy, for your consideration as a Lent Madness candidate for LM2025.

   St. Lucy is often seen with eyeballs on a plate.

   Seeing, sensing, inner-vision and outer vision are all fascinating. We do not need to see to know we are children of God and held in love.

   She is also seen with a Palm Branch which is a symbol of good over evil. I know I can use more good over evil every day, all day long.

   Lucia means light-how lovely!

   Please consider her!

   2

5. I would like to nominate Macrina the Younger, about whom I have just completed a book being published by Wipf and Stock (A Pure Mirror Turned To Face the Sun). Born to wealth and privilege, Macrina carried on an audacious project that is both fascinating and inspiring. She set out to make her life an embodiment of the holy, and her home a microcosm of the greater good, of the Gospel. She transformed the family's aristocratic estate into a community of equal privilege where freed slaves and nobel women prayed and worked together. Macrina created one of the first women's religious communities and taught and helped her little brother to establish a men's community next door. These communities provided the living "laboratory" in which Basil developed the original Rule of cenobitic life. Macrina was very close with her mother. She baked bread, worked in wool, and sang psalms day and night.

6. I'd like to nominate
   Benedict Joseph Labre, 1748-83
   Tried to join an order but rejected; lived life as a pilgrim, fool for Christ, mendicant.
   Patron saint of the homeless.

7. I nominate Richard Meux Benson, commemorated (with Charles Gore) on January 14th in LFF 2022.

   Fr. Benson was the chief founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, the first religious order for men in Anglican Communion since the Reformation. SSJE has played a profound role in my own spiritual journey (my Holy Week retreat at their Cambridge, MA monastery this year marked 50 years of visiting and praying with that community). I am deeply grateful for this community and the man who began it.

   In its earlier decades, SSJE sent mission priests to the Us, South Africa, India, and Canada. They also had a Japanese community, after WW II, I think. The impact of SSJE throughout TEC continues to be great. Brothers have served as Chaplains to the House of Bishops, as spiritual directors at TEC seminaries, as preachers and teachers in parishes and dioceses, and in offering retreats in their Massachusetts houses. Most recently, they have developed a growing online ministry, beginning before the Covid pandemic, but growing much more since.

   Fr. Benson's not only founded this community which such wide impact, his formative influence continues to shape their life till this day. He said that SSJE Brothers were to be "men of the moment," an oft-quoted phrase that has encouraged new generations of Brothers to reshape their life and ministry as the world and church have changed.

   In a similar vein, he wrote the following in a meditation on the Epiphany, reflecting on Matthew saying that the Magi returned to their own land "by another way."

   "None can come to Christ at Bethlehem and go away as they came… Our coming to Christ changes everything, and therefore even to the old scenes we return with changed hearts and new power… It is indeed a greater thing to return to the old world by a new and heavenly life, and to live therefore, in the world as those who have been with Jesus, than it is to enter upon new spheres of life but with an old heart. That would be to set about new things in the old way. The necessary thing for us is to set about old things in a new way." (quoted in this and other sermons of current SSJE Brothers: https://www.ssje.org/2023/01/06/not-all-those-who-wander-are-lost-br-jim-woodrum/)
   A man with that kind of vision and wisdom has much to offer to the Church in a time of great change.

   More about Fr. Benson can be found in these sermons by contemporary SSJE Brothers. https://www.ssje.org/2014/01/14/feast-of-father-benson-br-james-koester/
   https://www.ssje.org/2013/01/15/living-in-love-father-bensons-vision-for-ssje-br-david-vryhof/
   https://www.ssje.org/2012/01/14/richard-meux-benson-br-geoffrey-tristram/

8. I nominate Padre Pio of Pietrelcina to compete for the Golden Halo in 2025. Padre Pio was a Capuchin Franciscan friar, priest, and mystic who died in 1967 and was canonized in 2002. I first became aware of Padre Pio when I passed an outdoor shrine to him on a country road in Landisville, NJ. Since then I have learned he is greatly loved and the patron saint of defense volunteers, stress relief, and adolescents. Known for his wisdom, compassion, stigmata, and possible bilocation and levitation, I think he would make a fine Lent Madness competitor.

9. I nominate Mother Teresa. Her mother's day quote puts her in the running for wisdom, teaching, and reassuring kindness for me. Not to mention her work with all the poor and needy of Calcutta.

   You will teach them to fly,
   But they will not fly your flight.
   You will teach them to dream,
   But they will not dream your dream.
   You will teach them to live,
   But they will not live your life.
   Nevertheless, in every flight,
   In every dream, in every life,
   The print of the way you taught
   Will always remain.

10. I'd like to nominate St. Katherine Drexel. She was born in 1858 to a very wealthy family in Philadelphia. After
    traveling abroad and in the West and South of this country she was moved by the plight of native Americans and African Americans so she entered a convent of the sisters of Mercy. Thereafter, she founded an order called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament specifically to serve indigenous and black Americans in the West and South. She financed more than 60 missions and schools including Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically black and Catholic University on the US.
    Someone who is born into wealth and privilege and uses it all to benefit those less fortunate who are not only ignored but also denigrated is worthy of consideration for Lent Madness

11. I nominate Elias Neau, Confessor of Jesus Christ Commemorated by The Episcopal Church on September, 7th.

12. I nominate Hudson Stuck, an Episcopal priest and explorer. He was born in London in 1863, but got to Texas as soon as he could in 1885.

    He worked as a cowboy near Junction City, taught school at Copperas Creek, San Angelo, and San Marcos before attending The University of the South in Sewanee Tennessee. He became an Episcopal Priest in 1892 and served as a parish priest in Cuero, Texas before serving as Dean of St. Matthew's Cathedral in Dallas.

    In 1905 he moved to Fort Yukon, Alaska, where he spent the rest of his life. He served as archdeacon of the Diocese of Alaska and was in the first contingent to completely ascend Denali (Mt. McKinley).

    Cowboy, teacher, priest, archdeacon, missionary, dogsledder, river boater, mountain climber, explorer - this Episcopalian was a truly remarkable man of Christ and I'm saddened that I have not heard about him before now. He truly deserves a Golden Halo.

    He died in 1920.

13. I would like to nominate, Sadhu Sundar Singh. Sundar remains one of the most overlooked saints within the Church, and yet represents one of the best parts of Anglicanism. His journey shows a deep devotion to Jesus, a reformer of a church steeped in culture, and a pioneer of how to communicate a universal Gospel in a local context. This is what Golden Halo winners are made of!

    He is venerated on the 19th of June by the Church of the England. Singh was raised in the Sikh faith, but would attend a Presbyterian school in India. After the death of his mother, he was so heartbroken he burned the Bible in anger and rejected his own faith. His search for truth led him to a fateful night, where planned to throw himself on the train tracks unless the true God was made known to him. He prayed for hours throughout the night, with the morning train due at 5:00am. Suddenly, the room came aglow and a figure appeared to him with wounds in His hands pierced by nails, and he spoke to Singh!

    From that moment on Singh's life would be changed. He was baptized at sixteen by an Anglican priest. His Punjabi family and neighborhood shunned him, threw snakes in his window, and even tried to poison him. He would move in with a British citizen in India, and continue on his journey of faith, sharing to seek the Gospel with all of India.

    Singh realized that the Gospel was not taking root in India not because it was untrue, but because it was seen as something foreign to Indians. Following in Paul's footsteps, Singh sought to make the Gospel known in its local context. Instead of a Cassock, he donned the saffron colored Sadhu, a robe typically reserved for Hindu holy persons. From there, he was known as the "saint with the bleeding feet," as he walked sharing the Good News with no possessions.

    He eventually enrolled in an Anglican seminary where his expression as a Christian within Punjabi culture left him on the outskirts of the community. Bishop Lefroy demanded that he conform to a more British way of faith, preaching where licensed, wearing European clothing, and Anglican clericals. Singh rejected making Disciples of the gospel of british culture, and left the seminary to make disciples of Jesus.

    There are a number of miracles and tales from his journey that include being thrown in to a well of bones, venturing throughout the world and decrying the materialism of the west, curing the ill, speaking to animals, creating converts, and eventually mysteriously dying somewhere in the Himalaya’s. All of which would be exciting for readers to see throughout Singh’s journey through each round to the Golden Halo!

    Sadhu Singh represents an Anglican Saint Francis of sorts. He threw off the expectations of his culture finding Christ personally present in a vision. He knew the message of the Gospel was compelling, but that the British Church in India had mixed it’s mission with that of colonialism. He brought the Gospel to the people in a way they could understand it, and set the example for how unity in common prayer, lived out through local expression allows the universal message of Christ to translate to all.

14. Thomas Cain - first black priest to serve in the Diocese of Texas, and as a deputy to General Convention

15. I nominate Katharina Von Bora. Her feast day is December 20th where she is listed as a church reformer. She is more well known as the wife of German reformer Martin Luther.
    Her story deserves more attention, from her escape from a convent in a fish barrel, to her hospitality as the wife of the famed reformer and the great affection Martin expressed for her in his letters.

16. I would like to nominate Saint Apollonia, the patron saint of dentistry. She was reputed to have had all of her teeth knocked out prior to her martyrdom. Visiting the dentist for many is a traumatic experience. One cannot diminish the importance of having a saint to invoke when faced with such trials. As a practicing dental hygienist for over 30 years, I am proud to have her as my saintly representative and would be delighted to see her in the next competition for the Golden Halo.

17. Thurgood Marshall is my nominee for the Golden Halo!! His amazing history as an attorney and Supreme Court Justice inspire me yearly, especially his support and advocacy for Native Americans, women, and African Americans. As an Episcopalian, he stands out in his advocacy for human rights. I wish he were alive today to advocate for common sense gun rights. We was a leader always!