We're getting closer, friends. In less than 24 hours we'll know who will be competing against Harriet Bedell for the Golden Halo. Yes, you heard that correctly, Harriet Bedell! Did anyone who filled out a bracket have Harriet competing in the championship round? Anybody? Harriet capped off a stunning Cinderella-like romp through Lent Madness 2014 by defeating Lydia yesterday 54% to 46% and will vie for the Golden Halo on Spy Wednesday with either Charles Wesley or Phillips Brooks.

But first, Charles and Phillips stare one another down in this battle of wordsmiths. Hymn writer and preacher. Though, to be fair, Wesley preached a bunch of sermons and Brooks wrote some hymns. And many generations have been inspired by their passion and creativity.

To make it this far, Charles Wesley defeated John Wesley, Thomas Merton, and Anna Cooper while Phillips Brooks turned away Simeon, Catherine of Siena, and Julia Chester Emery.

Oh, and congratulations to the Lent Madness Faithful for helping us achieve our goal of 10,000 likes on Facebook! We had great faith in you and the milestone was tripped at 10:18 pm Eastern Standard Time by a Canadian (of all things) proving that Lent Madness is indeed a global phenomenon. Or at least that Maple Anglican is a lot more influential than we thought.

After watching Tim and Scott's last Lenten edition of the award winning (well, not yet but we're optimistic and/or deluded) Monday Madness, let's see what the Archbishops have to say about today's match-up:

Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley Writing, by Richard Douglass

The other day, I asked a friend what I should say in order to convince you, dear reader, to cast your vote for Charles Wesley in today’s Lent Madness match-up. I was given a definite and absolute answer: “it’s all about the hymns!”

In one sense, of course the case for Charles Wesley centers on his 6,000+ hymns. For me, those hymns have been present at some of the most dear and cherished moments of my life –- I’ve attended weddings and funerals and sung Love Divine, All Loves Excelling. I recall the Christmas Eve eucharists as child where I would be so excited to sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Easter morning was never complete without Christ the Lord is Risen Today/Jesus Christ is Risen Today. 

His hymns punctuate the seasons of the church’s year (as with Come Thou Long Expected Jesus and Lo! He

Charles Wesley, from St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, San Francisco, CA

Comes with Clouds Descending), and they provide language to express our desire to offer our highest praises to God (O For a Thousand Tongues To Sing!). At times, they simply stand in awe and amazement at God’s incredible love for us (And Can it Be That I Should Gain?).

But in a larger sense, I like Charles Wesley for way more than writing my favorite hymns. Because for Wesley, the hymns -– magnificent as they are –- were but other tools in his toolbox –- yet another way of striving to reach every last person with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Charles Wesley wanted every last person on earth to have that same feeling of confidence and assurance in Jesus Christ’s love for them, just as he had experienced his own “strange palpitation of the heart” and assurance that Jesus loved him on that Pentecost Day in 1738.

It’s no secret that this mission of Charles Wesley often led him right up to the edge of trouble. With his brother, Charles received disapproval from church authorities when, casting aside long-standing practice, he went out into the fields to preach the gospel to people who otherwise never would have had an opportunity to step into a church. And preach he did –- to thousands upon thousands.

And the hymns…Charles Wesley’s many hymns were to him yet another means by which the gospel could be heard, that Jesus Christ could be known, and Jesus’ love could be felt by everyone. The famous 19^th century American preacher Henry Ward Beecher once confessed his understanding of the power of those hymns to stir the heart when he said: “I would rather have written that hymn of Wesley's, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, than to have the fame of all the kings that ever sat on the earth.”

Charles Wesley was described by those who knew him as “a man made for friendship.” And for him, that’s what all those hymns, all those sermons, and all his work was all about: friendship with God and with neighbor.

That’s a commitment, and a ministry, that we can sing about today and every day, even as we, like Charles Wesley, cast our crowns before Jesus… lost in wonder, love, and praise.

-- David Sibley

 Phillips Brooks

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In the later decades of the 19th Century Phillips Brooks, rector of Trinity Church, Boston, was a national celebrity. It was a time when, unlike today, being widely-known, much less widely-respected and beloved as Brooks was, was no small feat.

Once clocked by a reporter at preaching more than 200 words per minute, Phillips Brooks must have been a been a magnetic, not to say breathless, preacher. We can’t know. Thomas Edison’s phonograph was not widely in use by Brooks’s death in 1893, but Martin Luther King, Jr.’s son has claimed that the cadence of Brooks’s sermons influenced his father’s preaching style. If we have Brooks to thank, in small part, for “I Have a Dream,” then we owe a great debt.

Upon reading his sermons more than 100 years later, it’s remarkable how overcome I am by a potent jolt of inspiration. I want to be a better person. I want to serve God with my best self and my whole heart. Sign me up!

Listen to the man:

The danger facing all of us -- let me say it again, for one feels it tremendously -- is not that we shall

Hall of Fame of Great Americans, Bronx Community College

make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel that life has no meaning at all -- not these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life's greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to render the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God -- and be content to have it so -- that is the danger. That some day we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with the husks and trappings of life -- and have really missed life itself. For life without God, to one who has known the richness and joy of life with Him, is unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one's friends may be spared -- satisfaction with a life that falls short of the best, that has in it no tingle and thrill which come from a friendship with the Father.

Brooks knew that it all comes down to love, as he shared so eloquently in a letter to young Helen Keller.

Trinity Church, Boston

“There is one universal religion, Helen - the religion of Love. Love your Heavenly Father with your whole heart and soul, love every child of God as much as ever you can, and remember that the possibilities of good are greater than the possibilities of evil; and you have the key to Heaven.”

The words Brooks shares are not bound by time. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Indeed, they are met in Christ every night of our lives. And his call to prayer to a God who knows no bounds sounds like it was written yesterday.

“Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.”

-- Heidi Shott

Vote!

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We started Lent Madness 2014 with 32 saints and now we're down to four. The Faithful Four. Who will win the coveted Golden Halo? Only a few short days and your voting participation will give us the answer. But it's come down to this: Lydia, Harriet Bedell, Charles Wesley, and Phillips Brooks.

Today we begin the first of two Faithful Four match-ups as Lydia takes on Harriet Bedell. In this round we ask our Celebrity Bloggers to briefly answer one question: "Why should Saint XX win the Golden Halo?" Speaking of which, how about a round of applause for our fabulous CB's who toil away in the salt mines of Lent Madness without nearly enough recognition? They are truly the backbone of this operation and are worthy of our gratitude. Please do hound them for autographs when you spot them wearing sunglasses and baseball caps just trying to lead normal lives.

To make it to the Faithful Four, Lydia defeated Moses the Black, John of the Cross, and Basil the Great while Harriet turned back Joseph Schereschewsky, Thomas Gallaudet, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. (click on the names of defeated opponents to view previous match-ups and refresh your memory about these two saintly women).

And, in case you were wondering, we're tantalizingly close to our goal of 10,000 Facebook likes. Over 9,920! Encourage that freshly minted teenager who just became eligible for an account to like us. Compel your grandfather for whom you just did spend the last five hours setting up his new computer and teaching him how to use Facebook to join the Lent Madness party. We can do this!

Finally, here's the Archbishop's Update highlighting today's battle:

Lydia

St. Lydia, unlike other saints, stands in the shadows. No legends, no stories of miracles, no healings. She just shows up in Acts, does her thing, disappears again. Yet she has lasted. She is a saint of paradox, standing with feet in two worlds..

Her very name, in Acts, is a contradiction. She’s Lydia Thyatira, which indicates she is from Thyatira, a town known for its dyeworks, but she appears in Philippi of Macedonia. She must have moved her family from the small town to the more-bustling crossroads of Philippi at some point. She’s a transplant, at a time when people didn’t move from their hometowns. She’s from two places at once.

She’s a powerful business woman in her community and head of her own household. That’s rare in her time and place. While we have other examples of female heads-of-households during the Pax Romana, it wasn’t common, and Lydia running her own prosperous dye business would have raised a few eyebrows, and caused a few Roman patriarchs to despair for the soul of the Empire. A strong woman in a strongly patriarchal society, she would not have been the most popular person.

Paul and Lydia, Church in Philippi

When we meet her, she is praying with the Jewish community, but she hasn’t converted. And she’s not at the synagogue; she’s at the riverbank, with the other God-fearers. Even when it comes to matters of faith, she’s holding several things in tension.

And yet, when she meets Paul, she’s drawn to the Jesus that he preaches, to the Jesus that he describes. She is immediately baptized, along with her entire household. And her life is changed. From that moment on, the entirety of her wealth, her status and her resources are dedicated to starting and sheltering the Christian mission in Philippi.

It’s impossible to crawl in the mind of another person, so who knows what drew her that day by the river. But perhaps part of the attraction was her unique blend of paradoxes. Perhaps she recognized in Jesus a sort of kindred spirit, who held together in himself the ultimate tension of heaven and earth, God and humanity.

Perhaps she found in Paul a kindred spirit who recognized her full potential for, in the words of Paul himself, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, for all are one in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Whatever the case, since then, she has been an inspiration for countless others to find their own voice in ministry. The ministries, the churches dedicated to Lydia testify to her enduring legacy. Even though not much is known about her, and even though the political whims of the later church never allowed for the popular devotion accorded to other saints, Lydia’s unique brand of dedication, perseverance, and faith have inspired many in their faith.

So who better to wear the Golden Halo than Lydia? Let’s give it to the woman who emerged from the shadows to lead the early church, and poured all she had, paradoxes and all, into the Gospel.

-- Megan Castellan

Harriet Bedell

Last summer the assignment of saints descended from the Supreme Executive Committee. I scanned the list for mine, pausing at Harriet Bedell. I had no idea who she was. These many months later, I am glad for the privilege to learn her story and to share it with you, the citizens of Lent Madness Nation.

(Oh, wait. That’s Red Sox talk best saved for tomorrow’s write-up on Phillips Brooks.)

Bedell’s story is infused with the stuff we associate with saintliness: charity, sacrifice, poverty, tenaciousness, courage, humility. The beauty of her story is also measured by the frailty that seeps through her narrative. In her early thirties, when she first arrived at the Oklahoma mission, she blanched at learning to ride a horse. Rather than embarrassing herself by asking tribal members to teach her, she took a horse out on the range and taught herself to ride in private. We can only imagine the bumps, bruises, and wounded pride she sustained in the process.

Nothing is wasted in God’s economy. Bedell’s experiences in Oklahoma paved the way for her years in Alaska just as those years prepared her for her long ministry among the Seminole in Florida. “Miss Harriet Bedell, of long experience in Indian work...for three years past has lived in...one of the most isolated spots in interior Alaska,” wrote Hudson Stuck, Archdeacon of the Yukon, in 1920. “Such a post requires a missionary entirely absorbed and happy in the work, and such a one is Miss Bedell.”

Her devotion to God and to the people she served may have been grounded in faith but its expression was always practical. The naturalist Thomas Barbour called her, “a hard-nosed realist.” And no account of Harriet Bedell would be complete without a listing of her no-nonsense “Rules of Life.”

1. God is first.
2. Don’t worry. Put all in the hands of God. Don’t think or talk about troubles.
3. Don’t hurry.
4. Don’t eat too much between meals.
5. Don’t do two things at the same time.
6. All life involves sacrifice.

That sacrifice serves as a remarkable example. Bedell, who died in 1969, never saw a movie or owned a radio. She lived a life solely focused on her call from God. Marya Repko’s biography, Angel of the Everglades, records a letter from Bedell to Bishop John D. Wing of the Diocese of South Florida. She wrote, “Our days are very full and it is so impossible to work at letters. The care of the sick is an important part of our work. They send for us or bring their sick ones to the mission...In the glades visits we often find medicine-men caring for the sick. At first they were not friendly but going as we do with Indians they saw we wanted to help.”

Repko writes, “When an influenza epidemic broke out in 1937...she took the sufferers into her own home where she fed them soup and aspirin. Her efforts were appreciated by the Medicine Man who called her ‘sister.’ She was also known as “in-co-shopie,” the woman of God.”

* Photos courtesy of Florida State Archives

-- Heidi Shott

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After yesterday's Harriet Havoc, it appears we have our first true Cinderella in Harriet Bedell since Emma of Hawaii made it to the championship round in 2012. She trounced Harriet Beecher Stowe 74% to 26% in the first blowout of the week after three days of tense back and forth battles.

Today we finalize the Faithful Four as Anna Cooper squares off against Charles Wesley. To make it to the Elate Eight, Anna defeated Joseph of Arimathaea and J.S. Bach while Charles beat out his brother John and Thomas Merton. The winner will cut down the proverbial nets and join Lydia, Phillips Brooks, and Harriet Bedell as the four remaining saints of Lent Madness 2014.

Here's today's Archbishops' Update for your viewing pleasure:

Have a good Palm Sunday weekend, all, and remember there are only three days left of this year's Madness. We'll have Faithful Four contests on Monday and Tuesday and voting for the Golden Halo on Spy Wednesday with the winner announced at 8:00 am on Maundy Thursday. Onward!

Anna Cooper

If you haven’t yet planned your next vacation, why not consider a road trip to the Mid-Atlantic — that is, of course, if you can’t make it to the great nation of Texas? Along with enjoying delectable blue crabs, artificially sweetened ice tea, and excessive humidity, you can embark upon a spiritual pilgrimage in honor of Dr. Anna Julia Cooper’s commitment to human dignity, equality, and Christian discipleship.

Begin your trip in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a visit to St. Augustine’s Normal School & Collegiate Institute (now St. Augustine’s College), where Anna Julia Cooper began attending school at the age of nine. While there, recall Anna Julia’s early foray into activism as she demanded entrance into the same courses as her male counterparts, including classes in theology and pastoral ministry.

Anna J. Cooper Home

After that, hop onto I-85 and make your way to Richmond, Virginia, where you’ll find the Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School in Richmond’s East End. Visit with the amazing students there, and perhaps you can join some of the teachers as they make regular visits to their students’ homes — not because they’re in trouble, but because their teachers are committed to maintaining an active role in their students lives. Be sure to purchase an AJCES t-shirt while you’re there, too.

After a day in Richmond (make you sure to visit their fantastic

M Street School

Museum of Fine Arts), hop on I-95 to Washington, D.C. While most of the traffic will be headed to the National Mall, drive on over to the less-crowded, but culturally rich & vibrant LeDroit Park to visit the M Street School (now Dunbar  High School) where Anna Julia Cooper served as principal.

If you get a chance, take a moment to enjoy the majestic sounds of Dunbar’s marching band. Upon leaving Dunbar, pass through Anna J. Cooper Circle on your way to visit her beautiful home. Be sure to take some pictures to mail home to your family and friends. Naturally, you’ll want to use the commemorative stamps in honor of Dr. Cooper, which you can purchase after taking a tour of the United States Postal Museum a few blocks away.

If the heat should become unbearable as you travel, recall Anna Julia’s tireless activism in heels and corsets and be encouraged. Besides, I’m not so sure that Mr. Wesley — classy and talented he may have been — was so impeccably and painfully dressed.

Educators, unite—
Writers, speak—
Clergy spouses (and widows), find a new companion—
Francophiles, raise a glass—
World travelers, behold your passport—
Overachievers, join your tribe—
Believers of equality, stamp out injustice—
Everyone, channel your inner “Anna Julia” and live the Gospel with boldness & hope (corset & heels, optional)

Vote Anna Julia Cooper, y’all!

-- Maria Kane

Charles Wesley 

You may fear, dearest reader, that as the younger of the famous Wesley Brothers, Charles Wesley would be bereft on nice, shiny, new kitsch. After all, youngest siblings always seem to get only hand-me-downs: clothes a few years out of style, “lovingly” used toys, and the like. And a lack of kitsch for Charles Wesley would mean a weak showing in the Elate Eight, and next to no chance of advancing. It would almost be as if he failed to show up for this late round of Lent Madness.

So can it be that Charles Wesley should gain an interest in the Zazzle’s kitsch? Yes, dear reader, Yes! Zazzle is here to remind us: There’s Methodist in My Madness!

But there are some in the kitsch-o-sphere that feel it is necessary to remind us that, even as a Methodist remains in our beloved Lent Madness, John and Charles Wesley were, indeed, Anglicans. Both died before Methodism split from the Church of England, and Charles, in particular, was very vocal against any potential split.

But people of all kinds of denominations can unite behind Charles Wesley, and especially behind his over 6,000 hymns which continue to inspire the faithful. Inspire the faithful, so much, that he hangs out with his fellow hymn writers William Cowper, Fanny Crosby, John Newton, and Isaac Watts on an exquisite “Sing Hymns Loud!” tie that is said to inspire a thousand tongues to sing.

Indeed, ‘tis mercy all, immense and at a fee, all this kitsch didst find out me! Of course, Lent Madness isn’t all about kitsch. It’s about preparing for Easter, and for so many, Charles Wesley’s hymn “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” is among their favorites. The hymn is an adaptation of the earlier version from the 1708 Lyrica David original; The United Methodist Hymnal uses Wesley’s adaptation, but in the Episcopal Church’s Hymnal 1982, the original is blended with Wesley’s own verse in “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.” In one form or another, the hymn is beloved enough to deserve a place on your living room wall.

Speaking of that favorite Wesley Tune, it looks like choir soloist John Daker from First United Methodist Church is getting ready to sing a song that’s very popular nowadays, with Charles Wesley being a contestant in Lent Madness. And then he’s gonna sing Amore too, okay?

On second thought, Charles Wesley's bust is not amused… so help him recover from that incredibly unique rendition of one of his hymns by voting him into the Faithful Four. 

-- David Sibley

Vote!

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We can't call this the "long-anticipated" Battle of the Harriets since, be honest, did anyone predict Harriet Bedell to make it to the Elate Eight? Nonetheless, we have a match-up rivaling the earlier Battle of the Catherines (of Alexandria vs. of Siena) plus we have a better name: Welcome to Harriet Havoc! Which Harriet will prevail? Well, that's up to you.

To get to this point, upstart Harriet Bedell bested Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky and Thomas Gallaudet while Harriet Beecher Stowe sent James Holly and Alcuin packing. Check out all the previous action and brush up on on your Harriet(s) trivia by clicking the bracket page and scrolling down to see their respective earlier match-ups.

Yesterday in the third hotly contested battle in as many days (it's been quite the week around here!), Phillips Brooks defeated (or should we say flexed his "mite" over) Julia Chester Emery 51% to 49%.

Be sure to watch the daily Archbishops' Update, and if there's someone out there who hasn't liked us on Facebook, get to it. We're pretty sure there are more than 9,762 Facebook subscribers out there. Don't make us contact Zuckerberg to confirm this. Here's the latest from the Archbishops:

Photo courtesy of Florida State Archives

Harriet Bedell

When you look this photo of Deaconess Harriet Bedell standing before a sign for the Glade Cross Mission, you can be forgiven for reading it as “Episcopal Souvenirs” instead of “Glade Cross Mission-Episcopal.” Considering the tireless work she offered for 27 years as a missionary to the Seminole people in southwest Florida, it’s possible to see that it could be true no matter how you read it.

Marion Nicolay, who offers historical re-enactments as Bedell, explains how the Deaconess worked to ensure that the tribal members benefited from the income derived from their handicrafts. She would take a loan from the Collier Corporation, then pay the tribal members for their work with script from the company’s store. She would sell the crafts in the mission shop to tourists and then pay off the loans and use the excess for tribal support and to buy big items like sewing machines. She paid her $20 monthly rent for the mission buildings out of the $50 monthly salary she received as an Episcopal Church missionary. Eventually the Collier Corporation deeded the property to the church. Nicolay, acting as Bedell in the 50-minute video, quips, “I found that I was the middle man for the tribe. That was never in my deaconess job description.”

During the Depression, Bedell drove her Model A to Washington, D.C. to lobby officials to protect the Seminoles’ handicrafts from being undercut by foreign, cheaply-made knock-offs. She accosted leaders at the Department of Labor (possibly Frances Perkins) and the American Trade Authority. She even showed up at the Japanese Embassy to offer a piece of her mind on the subject of replica goods. Ultimately the U.S. Government put a halt to such imports.

Rare male Seminole doll donated to the Miami Science Museum by Deaconess Harriet Bedell in 1952.

While in D.C. she got the idea to drive up to New York City to pitch the department stores like Saks and Bergdorf Goodman to see if they would place orders for Seminole crafts. As the Depression deepened and the tourists stopped visiting Florida, the orders from New York stores kept some money coming in. The Deaconess had some pretty good ideas.

Bedell’s passion for the people she served was noticed well beyond The Episcopal Church and the local and tribal communities. In 2000 she was named a “Great Floridian” by the Florida Department of State. A commemoration plaque is mounted at the front door of the Museum of the Everglades.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Marco Island established the Bedell Chapel to honor her life and ministry. Local artist Hannah Ineson painted this gorgeous mural depicting the Everglades - complete with alligator -- behind the altar of the chapel. (Here’s a crazy Episcopal thing for those of you who like crazy Episcopal things: Hannah’s husband John is the priest who baptized our sons and was a long-time rector of St. Andrew’s in Newcastle, Maine, which, get this, was Frances Perkins’ summer parish).

In 1943 Harriet Bedell turned 68 and was told by the bishop she would have to retire. She brokered a deal where she would get $50 a month in pension (eerily similar to her salary) and be allowed to carry on with her ministry as long as her health held out. She served for another 17 years and was often quoted as saying, “There is no retirement in the service of the Master.”

Perhaps it was inevitable that someone who worked so hard to improve that lives of the people she served, not least by helping to improve the quality of their handcrafted dolls, would one day have a doll created in her likeness. On display at St. Mark’s is the cross from the Glade Cross Mission that survived Hurricane Donna as well as a doll depicting a Seminole child and the Deaconess herself.

Not for sale.

-- Heidi Shott 

Harriet Beecher Stowe

I know that one of the problems that plagues you, the Lent Madness voter, is a crippling loneliness -- a fear that you might one day be without Harriet Beecher Stowe. Well, I am here to tell you -- that day will never, ever come, because she is everywhere.

Do you want to always remember her most influential work? Why not wear it around your wrist! 

How about as a t-shirt? You can do that too! Every blessed word, printed artfully on a tshirt!   (This is actually an incredibly cool idea, and money goes to promote literacy around the world).

Note: Uncle Tom's Cabin has so much merchandise behind it, that, were you to contemplate it all,  your head would explode. The book was so popular, that for the first time, diverse companies jumped on its popularity to sell their own products -- from lamps to playing cards to hankerchiefs, etc. If it was possible to stamp Eva and Tom on a thing, it was done, and so Uncle Tom's Cabin was the first mass marketed work of art in Western culture, and all without licensing agreements, so poor Harriet never saw a dime extra. If you're interested, however, there's an excellent roundup here.

But this is distracting us from dealing with all things Beecher Stowe. Do you need to mail a strongly worded, yet eloquently phrased letter to your congress person? Harriet postage stamps to the rescue!

When night comes, are you seized by fits of anxious indecision and moral turpitude? Don't worry! You can buy a Harriet Beecher Stowe stuffed doll to counsel you! (and it's on sale!).

But most of all, you require what everyone does. When you're out with your friends, you need something to show them. Something to hand them, to guide them to a saintly path.

I give you, Harriet Beecher Stowe trading cards!  Suitable for trading, collecting, or distributing to wayward individuals.

-- Megan Castellan

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The second match-up of the Elate Eight pits a renowned preacher and bishop against a tireless lay woman. Both were spiritual giants, although at six foot six and nearly 300 pounds, Brooks was also a physical giant.

To get to this point, Phillips Brooks defeated Simeon and Catherine of Siena while Julia Chester Emery was victorious over Charles Henry Brent and F.D. Maurice. Don't forget you can see all the previous match-ups to refresh your memory about the contestants by going to the bracket page and scrolling down.

Yesterday saw Lydia sneak past Basil the Great in another squeaker 51% to 49%. Yowza! Fortunately there was no great scandal with this battle as there was in the Charles Wesley/Thomas Merton match-up. To put everyone at ease, please know the Supreme Executive Committee keeps Jimmy Carter on retainer as an impartial election observer. Also, one member of the SEC used to work for IBM so BIG FATHER is always watching.

Maple Anglican has released his daily Archbishops' Update featuring everyone's favorite Lent Madness colour commentators. which you can watch here. And we're getting closer to our goal of 10,000 likes on Facebook before the Golden Halo as we're now pushing 9,740. Spread the word!

Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks’ Trinity Church was the first Episcopal Church I ever entered. It was 1980, and The Empire Strikes Back had been released that summer (retain this important detail). I was on a college orientation trip to Boston with 400 other freshman, and one stop was Copley Square. Trinity Church beckoned and, as I stepped inside, the spectacular sacred space of Brooks’ imagination stunned me. Christian and Missionary Alliance churches didn’t look anything like this.

But enough of this reverie! Let’s get to the saintly kitsch!

A cursory search for Phillips Brooks treasures on Zazzle turns up the usual pithy quote-bedecked beer stein and travel mug, both a whopping $29.95, and sporting a particularly Victorian-sounding epigram: “Jesus Christ, the condescension of divinity, and the exaltation of humanity.”

The young children in your life might like this O Little Town of Bethlehem stocking stuffer pop-up book on Amazon.A visit to the web store of the Phillips Brooks Elementary School in Menlo Park, California, turns up the requisite long-sleeved t-shirt for only$29.99.

But where are the items of devotion for a man whom Peter Gomes described as the most famous American preacher since Cotton Mather? Where are the commemorative goods for the first American minister to be invited to preach at Westminster Abbey? The man who had 15,000 Bostonians turn up for his funeral.

Where, where you ask? The answer, in a word, is Ebay.

My first find is this rather spectacular lithograph with a quote from one of Brooks’ sermons can now be  yours for $89.99 OBO. “O, do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks!” it begins.

That first search led to dozens, nay, tens of dozens of vintage Brooks books and memorabilia. For just $3.00 you can own a lovely volume from 1908 titled, Jewels of Phillips Brooks. It contains color plates and pithy quotes from his sermons and is way better (and cheaper) than a coffee mug.

There is even a Phillips Brooks precursor to Forward Day by Day published shortly before his death, a “yearbook” that offers “day by day guidance to live a meaningful life, for yourself and for others.”

One of the most remarkable finds is this 1953 wall calendar that commemorates Phillips Brooks. 1953! Such was the appeal of his preaching and wisdom and the longevity of his reputation that 60 years after his death people were still buying calendars upon which to note their dentist appointments. You can own this “used not abused” calendar for a mere $12.99 plus $3.00 for shipping.

But now we must return to Copley Square in 1980. Somehow upon entering the church I missed the famous statue of Brooks by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens that was installed in 1910. Saint-Gaudiens had intended to place a stylized angelic figure behind Brooks. But, alas, he died in 1907 before it was completed. However, a group of artists decided a depiction of Jesus would be better. Unfortunately they designed the creepiest Jesus ever cast in bronze, whom I would have immediately identified, having seen The Empire Strikes Back three times that summer, as Emperor Palpatine.

Here’s what I believe: The real and loving Jesus steered me clear of the creepy statue-Jesus and led me into Trinity Church, because having seen it first, I would have turned around and gone to get a coffee at the old Harvard Book Store Cafe on Newbury Street. Instead I entered and the beauty and peace of that sacred space lodged itself in my heart and opened a door for a new way of thinking about the mystery of God.

Thank you, Phillips Brooks. Without your life and witness and your perseverance in building that stunning church, I might have turned out to be a CMA missionary in some remote, buggy place with spotty Internet and poisonous snakes.

 -- Heidi Shott

Julia Chester Emery

Although her influence in the Episcopal church was far-reaching (remember how as national secretary of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Board of Missions for the Episcopal Church from 1876 to 1916 she visited EVERY DIOCESE and set up more than 5,600 chapters of what is now the Episcopal Church Women (ECW)? How she visited missions all over the Far East as well? And how she championed the canonical office of deaconess? And how she created the United Thank Offering (UTO)?), Julia Chester Emery’s actual likeness appears on … basically nothing. As Forward Movement notes: "She was a modest and self-effacing Victorian lady who was so careful to stay out of the limelight …"

Still, as such a major figure in the church and in the world through her encouragement and support of missionaries (we know that she was a major inspiration for all sorts of wonderful things. For instance, look at all these Julia dolls! Clearly she is the model for the cute baby, the adorable toddler wearing Crocs, AND the demure teen. Clearly she is the model for the “My Friend Julia” machine washable doll!

(OK, and this last doll is actually inspired by Christina the Astonishing, who, sadly, did not survive the first round even though lots of people wanted to see what sort of kitsch she inspired, so here you go.)

She also clearly inspired the trucking industry! How many people can say that?

Also, check out this toast rack in the “Julia” pattern from Royal Winton china. Perfect for holding your Virgin Mary and/or Jesus toast. (There are salt and pepper shakers, teapots, and other lovelies in the Julia pattern, too.)

Naturally, Julia also inspired such important and useful items as key chains. See?

Now, all of these other Julia-inspired items are available for purchase, somewhere. (Well, maybe not the truck.) However, there’s another Julia item that is unique and priceless, and I own it. It’s almost like a relic. This is a raku pottery UTO box (circa 2000) made by my son when he was in elementary school.

So vote for Julia and send her to the round of the Faithful Four!

-- Penny Nash

Vote!

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It's a big day in Lent Madness 2014 as, after a long and winding road, we have made it to the Round of the Elate Eight. The original field of 32 saints has been narrowed to eight. The light at the end of the Golden Halo is slowly emerging and by the end of the week we'll be down to the Faithful Four.

Yesterday we wrapped up the Saintly Sixteen in a tight race that Lent Madness bracketologists say will go down in history as the closest battle ever.

NOTE: We closed the poll at 8:00 am. Once the Supreme Executive Committee has certified the results, we will announce the winner later this morning -- either Charles Wesley or Thomas Merton. In the interest of fairness and the love of Jesus, we will make sure this is a clean election before proceeding.

We begin this round with Basil the Great vs. Lydia. Basil made it this far by defeating Christina the Astonishing and Antony of Egypt. Lydia advanced by besting Moses the Black ad John of the Cross. The other match-ups of this round are Phillips Brooks vs. Julia Chester Emery, Harriet Bedell vs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Anna Cooper vs. Thomas Merton or Charles Wesley.

The Elate Eight is also known as the Saintly Kitsch round. After basic biographies, quotes and quirks, what else could there be? There are always some folks who take offense to this approach -- we call them Kitsch Kranks and have written about this phenomenon in years past. This is not to belittle or demean our saintly heroes but to have some fun and gaze in wide wonder at the breadth of devotional practice. So kindly relax and enjoy the spirit of the Madness as we push ever onward to our goal.

After a one week hiatus due to Lent Madness missionary journeys, Tim and Scott returned with their latest Monday Madness video. And Archbishops John and Tom, fresh off their national television debut, offer their Daily Update as they preview today's contest and answer viewer mail. There are just so many ways to immerse yourself in the Madness!

Basil the Great

Basil the Great: Cappadocian Father; opposer of not one but two heresies; advocate for the Nicene Creed (or what would eventually become the Creed); sibling to saints; founder of communal monasticism, composer of prayers, Doctor of the Church; revealer of Heavenly Mysteries; advocate of the poor and needy; and generally all-around nice guy.

Yes, that Basil.

Because of his work to reform (or change...but isn’t "reform" a much snazzier word?) the Church, heis the patron saint of reformers, monastics, and Russia (where the venerated St. Basil’s Cathedral resides, but more on that later).

So, if you’re thinking about suggesting that the way we’ve always done things may not be the best way or if you want to nail a few theses on a church door, you may want to wear this lovely medal as a reminder that the spirit of Basil is with you. This and body armor may protect you. May...

Arianism, the heresy that Jesus was begotten of God, not eternal with God, was a big controversy in Basil’s day. Legend says that Arian and his supporters had this cheer used at the Council of Nicaea: "If you want the logos doctrine I can serve it cold or hot: God begot him, but before he was begotten he was not!”

Should you find yourself in a dispute with heretical Christians about the true nature of Christ, you can simply wear this shirt as you recite the Nicene Creed, even if they do have a better cheer.

Moscow’s Red Square, one of the most stunning buildings is the Cathedral of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God, aka the Cathedral of St. Vasily the Blessed aka St. Basil’s Cathedral. Over 450 years old ago, Ivan the Terrible ordered the Cathedral constructed. The design was so original, legend has it that Ivan blinded the architect so he couldn’t re-create another like it (apparently that Terrible moniker wasn’t for show).

The Russian Basil is not Basil the Great, but rather Basil, the Fool for Christ who shoplifted and gave to the poor. But since it’s a rather uncommon name for a saint and a stunning Cathedral (now officially a museum), take a look.

And, since you can’t take the Cathedral home with you, there’s a nifty wall decal you can put in your foyer to impress family and visitors.

Should you be victim of a dastardly deed in Victorian England...and be a mouse, you can always call on Basil the Great Mouse Detective. He catches criminal, solves hijinks, and plays the violin and chess. No information could be found on his particular viewpoint on Arianism, but given his moniker, we will believe he could recite the Nicene Creed with gusto in a crisp British accent. His story is available in the Basil of Baker Street books by Eve Titus or in film in The Great Mouse Detective by Disney.  He is not, alas, included in the Lent Madness Book of Saints.

Basil is from the Greek βασιλεύς basileus, meaning "king.” Basil’s parents had high expectations when they named their son, expectations he lived up to. Basil is well-known outside Lent Madness circles as a popular herb, legal in all 50 states. There are over 160 varieties, and while its leaves are the most well-used part, its seeds are soaked into a gelatinous goo and added to certain drinks and desserts in Asian cuisine. Native to India for over 5,000 years, it was known and used in the ancient world for medicinal and culinary uses. Who knows, maybe Basil ate basil?

-- Laurie Brock

Lydia

Lydia, while being your basic Patron Saint of Mystery when it comes to miracles, legends and basic life stories, nevertheless has inspired much devotional material the world over.

You can buy postcards of the church in Philippi where she was baptized, to gaze at adoringly, and to plan your next vacation. (Which will be Lent Madness themed, of course.)

You can also buy a necklace with a tasteful icon of Lydia on the front. On the back appears what looks like to me a snail shell motif, which just raises so many questions. Is it commenting on Lydia’s profession as a Milker of Snails? Is it seeking to reconcile her to the marine crustaceans at last? Make your own judgments here.

Speaking about marine crustaceans, are you curious about those snails that Lydia used for dye? Apparently, so is the rest of the world. This Italian restaurant in Toms River, New Jersey, formulated an appetizer using those very snails, and you, too, can make it at home, for the full Saint Lydia experience. (Provided, of course, you can find the snails somewhere, and you are a very good and well-trained chef.) No word on whether they turn your mouth purple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTudWg5pS54

Next, we have not one, but two, versions of Lydia as a doll for children. One is made of felt, and even comes complete with a tiny basket, filled with rolls of dyed purple fabric. 

The other is a peg doll, suitable for even the tinest would-be church planters.

Buy them for your children and your grandchildren! Have them act out Lydia’s life: planting churches, assuming egalitarian leadership roles, and donating massive wealth to the struggling Christian community!

What better role model for the little ones than St. Lydia!

-- Megan Castellan

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In the last battle before the start of the highly anticipated Elate Eight (aka the Saintly Kitsch round), Thomas Merton takes on Charles Wesley. Poet vs. hymn writer. Both were brothers, of course -- one a monastic brother (Trappist) and one an actual brother (to John Wesley). It's the final match-up of the Saintly Sixteen!

In a quick media round-up, everyone's favorite online Lenten devotion was featured last week on National Public Radio, Christianity Today, and even the Methodists got in on the action with a post on UMC.org, the official online ministry of the Methodist Church (something tells us they may be especially interested in today's match-up). Also, Archbishops John and Thomas made their national television debut on Bloomberg TV.

What's the secret behind all the Lent Madness love out there (besides the warm and fuzzy nature of the Supreme Executive Committee)? Forward Movement Managing Editor Richelle Thompson shares her take in an article titled "If At First You Don't Succeed" on the Episcopal Church Foundation's Vital Practices webpage (Hint: no high priced PR consultants were harmed in this process).

And if you're looking to take the edge off Monday Morning, watch the Archbishops' Update as they preview the Lent Madness week ahead.

Finally, we're making progress in our campaign to reach 10,000 likes on Facebook before awarding the Golden Halo! We're pushing 9,650 so make sure to share our page with everyone you know. We suggest pilfering the parish directory and sending handwritten notes to everybody urging them to like Lent Madness immediately.

Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton is considered by many to be the voice of the contemplative tradition in the modern world. His books, over 30 of them, reinvigorated those interested in contemplative practice. Given his voluminous amount of writing, his quotes were more than plentiful.

The quirks, however, are what make his quotes matter. Perhaps the quirk was his life of self contradictions. An unhappy child and unsettled adolescent became an adult who, on a street corner in Kentucky, was overwhelmed with the realization he loved all these people, "that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.”

A man with an extravagant personality and celebrity also craved his own space, eventually granted, somewhat grudgingly, in The Hermitage. A deeply devout Trappist who described his order as one that “carried communism to its ultimate limit” also explored the truths in Eastern faith. A sometimes hermit shared his soul and spirit with millions through his words. A man who, in his later years, fell in love with a nurse, writing her love poetry, wrote love poetry to his monastic life, as well, and ultimately reaffirmed his life as a Trappist before his untimely death. Even that too held contradictions: the avid peace activist’s body was flown to Kentucky on a military plane.

Merton was a writer, a poet, an artist, a jazz aficionado, a dissident, a lover, a peace activist, a hermit, a celebrity, and a man -- all held in union in his deeply contemplative soul. The illusion is that we are non-contradictory. To find our true selves, filled with beauty and contradictions and other-ness, we must enter into contemplation. For Merton, “We become contemplatives when God discovers Himself in us.”

Through contemplation, we seek truth. Merton writes, “We make ourselves real by telling the truth....But he can forget how badly he needs to tell the truth....We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us.”

And that truth? That self that is beyond illusion, that welcomes our contradictions, our paradoxes and ambiguities? In that space is God.

The man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God’s love precisely because of his shortcomings, can be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.

When all our shortcomings, our hypocrisies, our failings...when all that we’d rather not expose about ourselves is welcomed into contemplative union with God, we become part of the dance that is in the midst of us, “for it beats in our very blood whether we want it to or not."

In the midst of Lent Madness, remember Merton’s call to cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join God’s dance.

Here is a video of a monk from Gethsemani praying one of Merton’s most famous prayers:

-- Laurie Brock

Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley (1707-1788), who with his brother John was among the chief leaders of the Methodist Revival within the Church of England, is especially quotable, having penned well over 6,000 hymns during his lifetime, in addition to a multitude of sermons a personal writings. Wesley knew well the power of hymns to convey theology to a wide audience.

One of Wesley’s great hymns was written on the anniversary of his inner conversion, which he described as “a strange palpitation of the heart.” The hymn spanned some eighteen verses, including some no longer in common use today, speaking to the theme of the assurance of salvation by the presence of the Holy Spirit:

O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer’s praise
The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace!

On this glad day the glorious Sun Of Righteousness arose;
On my benighted soul He shone, and fill’d it with repose.

Then with my heart I first believed, Believed with faith Divine;
Power with the Holy Ghost received, to call the Saviour mine.

Some of Wesley’s hymns weren’t as “worship-ready.” After his brother John appointed Thomas Coke as Superintendent for the Methodists in America – giving to Coke the responsibilities in America that would have belonged to a Bishop in the Church of England – Charles Wesley penned a sarcastic verse to express his sense of anger and betrayal:

So easily are Bishops made
By man’s or woman’s whim?
Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid,
But who laid hands on him?

But the vast majority of his hymns, however, remain firmly entrenched on our lips. As a man who often preached in the fields to people unable to reach a parish church, yet another text speaks to the heart of Charles Wesley’s ministry:

Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim,
And publish abroad His wonderful Name;
The Name all victorious of Jesus extol,
His kingdom is glorious and rules over all.

But it is one of his hymns written on the theme of Christian perfection that is perhaps the most beloved. The hymn is among the most fitting and most quotable summations of the theology and ministry of this incredible theologian, preacher, and author:

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.

Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all Thy life receive;
Suddenly return and never,
Never more Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
Pray and praise Thee without ceasing,
Glory in Thy perfect love.

Finish then thy new creation:
pure and spotless let us be
Let us see thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in thee
Changed from glory into glory
‘til in heaven we take our place
‘til we cast our crowns before thee, 
lost in wonder, love and praise!

-- David Sibley

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NOTE: The Supreme Executive Committee has adjusted vote totals based on some cheating we detected. See your announcement on this subject..

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Since they were both teachers, among other things, Harriet Bedell vs. Thomas Gallaudet can mean only one thing: Educational Armageddon! The winner of this penultimate (we just love saying that word) match-up of the Saintly Sixteen will square off against Harriet Beecher Stowe in the next round.

Yesterday Phillips Brooks defeated Catherine of Siena by a nose (head?) as preacher trumped mystic 53% to 47%. (okay, it wasn't that close but when else besides, perhaps, John the Baptist's feast day can we make references to disembodied skulls). He'll go on to face Julia Chester Emery in the Elate Eight.

With the conclusion of today's showdown the Round of the Elate Eight is nearly set. On Monday Thomas Merton takes on Charles Wesley for a crack at Anna Cooper. At this point, the others moving on are Basil the Great, Julia Chester Emery, Lydia, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Phillips Brooks, and Anna Cooper.

As we head into the weekend and yet another bout with LMW (Lent Madness Withdrawal) we leave you with a challenge. Help us get to 10,000 likes on Facebook before the 2014 Golden Halo is awarded. We're over 9,500 at this point so it's an attainable goal if we all pull together and compel people to like us during coffee hour, at the Peace, in the church parking lot, talking to strangers at IHOP, whatever. The Supreme Executive Committee likes big, fat round numbers.

Photo courtesy of the State Archives of Florida

Harriet Bedell

Whether she was riding horseback in Oklahoma, mushing on dog sleds to remote villages in Alaska or poling through canals in the Florida Everglades (in her high-topped, snake-resistant boots), Deaconess Harriet Bedell, though tiny in stature, lived a super-sized life for God.

The Deaconess, as she is still known among Episcopalians in southwest Florida, never wavered in her faith or in her complete devotion to native people.

About her first post, among the Cheyenne people at the Whirlwind Mission in Oklahoma where she served with Deacon David Oakerhater (Lent Madness 2012 alum), she wrote:

We open school with Morning Prayer... I then take my twenty little ones to my house...which has this advantage, that I am ready to answer any immediate call which may come to the house. There is no doctor within twelve miles, so we have to act as doctors, and nurses, besides being lawyers, amanuenses, and spiritual advisors.

Her work in Alaska between 1916 and 1931, first in Nahana and then after a year in Stevens Village, was similar. Except with snow.

When the mission closed in Alaska, the Deaconess was sent to Florida to drum up funds for mission work. She was appalled at the living conditions of the Seminole people and how the people were put on display for tourists, wrestling alligators, and staging mock weddings. Apparently an appalled deaconess was a formidable deaconess, and, within a year, she was beginning the hard, patient work of winning the trust of the Seminole tribe.

She supported her new mission with the assistance from leaders of the Collier Corporation, a citrus concern that owned great swaths of the Everglades. One executive, George Huntoon, suffered the brunt of her “persistence.” He recalled, according Marya Repko’s her excellent 2009 book, Angel of the Swamp, “that she would come tromping up the stairs...to request help. In an attempt to avoid these confrontations, his secretary would say that he was not in while he snuck down the fire escape. It did not take long for the Deaconess to realize the ruse and meet him at the bottom of the steps.” Years later Huntoon observed, “When the Deaconess got after you for something. I found it was best to acquiesce and comply with her request because she would keep after you until you got it done for her.”

Margory Stoneman Douglas, a historian and of the Everglades, wrote of the Deaconess in 1947, “The deaconess, like a small steam engine in dark-blue petticoats, walks fast in and out of the trail camps, speaking to everybody by name, asking about sick babies, bringing some old man a mattress pad for his aching bones...taking somebody to the hospital, or getting work for the boys.”

According to Repko, someone once asked a Seminole man if he had known the Deaconess. He replied, “Yes, and I loved her.” Then he pointed to the heavens and said, “she knew God.”

-- Heidi Shott

Thomas Gallaudet

One of the great things about Thomas Gallaudet is his amazing family. His grandfather, Peter Wallace Gallaudet, was the personal assistant to George Washington while the Presidency was in Philadelphia. His father, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, is considered by many to be the father of manual (i.e. sign-language based) Deaf Education in the U.S.

Gallaudet’s mother, Sophia Fowler, is a woman Gallaudet rightly held in high esteem. In a sermon, Gallaudet describes how his mother, who was deaf from birth, taught him sign language. “I learned this powerfully descriptive method of communicating ideas from my mother. I remember well how I watched her face and hands as she affectionately tried to train me in the right way.” Among other things, she taught him that deafness was not an impediment to intelligence or achievement, as she actively lobbied members of Congress to support the Columbia Institution for the Deaf (now Gallaudet University). Gallaudet’s youngest brother, Edward Miner Gallaudet, was Columbia’s president for 46 years.

Our Thomas Gallaudet was no slouch, mind you. It’s worth noting that, in a time when one could not receive communion without being confirmed, and one could not be confirmed without reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the sacraments were almost completely denied to those who could not speak. Gallaudet’s work in providing signed services made it possible, not only for the deaf to “hear” the service, but allowed them to be confirmed, receive communion, and become ordained.

“There is no reason, therefore,” Gallaudet preached, “why deaf-mute men, fitted to be admitted to priest's orders, should not minister among their own kind in the language which makes prayer and praise common to those who have assembled (intelligently, notwithstanding their terrible deprivation) around the table of their Lord and Master, the Christian altar, and as they stretch forth their hands so eagerly and earnestly to receive the consecrated elements, and to spiritually feed on the Body and Blood of Christ, to know in their inmost souls the meaning of the encouraging word, ‘Ephphatha.’”

Gallaudet changed the hearts and minds of people in the Episcopal Church to believe that the deaf could and should, not only be welcomed, but lead and minister to others. That he did so while remaining beloved by all throughout his life is a testament to how he practiced what he preached: “In all works of practical benevolence, zeal must be combined with discretion, and earnestness must be controlled by judgment. And let us ever be ready to say in our hearts, that if this work, which is so dear to us, is not of God, let it not prosper, but let providential circumstances bring it to a speedy termination. This is looking at our labor with the eye of true Christian philosophy.”

P.S. Happy Deaf History Month!

-- Laura Darling

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Today's match-up features two saintly souls with devilish potential for misspellings. Calling Phillips Brooks "Philip" is like calling Johns Hopkins "John" while spelling Catherine's home of Siena with two "n's" rather than one is like spelling Saint Monnica with one "n" rather than two. Wait, what? Anyway, there's a lot of spelling on the line in today's match-up.

Yesterday, besides hearing Lent Madness featured on NPR, Lydia sent John of the Cross to Dark Night of the Soul redux 58% to 42%. It was a bad day for snails but something tells us we'll be hearing more about escargot during the Saintly Kitsch Round when Lydia faces Basil the Great.

Phillips Brooks

A dozen years ago Ellen Wilbur, a short story writer and member of Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston, sought out Phillips Brooks’ sermons. A search yielded fragile, incomplete copies, some of which fell apart in her hands.

“I’d never read a book of sermons in my life, and now wanted to read nothing but Phillips Brooks. There was something wondrous about the loving voice with which he spoke and the utter faith which underlay and glorified all of his preaching,” Wilbur wrote in the preface to a collection of sermons she edited in 2003 titled The Consolations of God.

Peter Gomes, the late professor at Harvard Divinity School, wrote in the book’s foreword, “Even in print, and at the remove of a century, Brooks sounds well, which is no small thing when few sermons last beyond lunchtime.”

In one sermon Brooks inspired people to serve God whatever their station in life, not least, perhaps, his wealthy Back Bay parishioners.

Strike God's iron on the anvil, see God's goods across the counter, put God's wealth in circulation, teach God's children in the school— so shall the dust of your labor build itself into a little sanctuary where you and God may dwell together.

If you are not spiritually minded, do not wait for mysterious light and vision. Go and give up your dearest sin. Go and do what is right. Go and put yourself thoroughly into the power of the holiness of duty.

All the world is an utterance of the Almighty.

Brooks seemed not to worry about the scholarly detractors who dismissed him as an intellectual lightweight. Gomes wrote,  “Brooks consistently practiced biblical preaching...he understood that part of his task was to open the treasures of the Scriptures to his people; and it was his pastoral concern for the human condition and its relationship to the eternal truths of the Christian gospel that made him a biblical preacher and not merely an orator on religious themes.”

In lectures at Yale, Brooks was famous for positing that preaching is “truth through personality.” He said, “the personality of the  teacher invad[ing] the personality of the scholar, bringing the personal Christ to the personal human nature.”

Brooks was a rare breed of priest: a standing-room-only preacher and a deeply caring pastor, something people of all faiths and classes recognized. In 1893, after serving only 15 months as bishop, Brooks died, and the city of Boston grieved. M.C. Ayers, editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser, wrote after his funeral, “It was the people who were quickest to discern the incomparable worth of Phillips Brooks. They knew him, flocked to him, loved and trusted him.”

As usual, it comes down to love. Brooks knew he was entirely beloved of God and thus free to bestow upon his people lavish attention and words to stir their hearts to serve God.

Brooks once said, “Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.”

-- Heidi Shott

Catherine of Siena

Catherine of Siena, the 14th century mystic, politician, carer for the poor, and all-around saintly all-star, was an overachiever on several fronts.

She was only seven when she had her first vision of Christ, but her visions kicked into high gear when she was in her mid twenties. She received the stigmata when the crucifix she was praying in front of exploded with five red beams of light, which pierced her hand, feet and heart. That same year, she had a vision in which Jesus appeared, and seemed to exchange her beating heart for his. When she received the Eucharist, she saw the bread become the Child Jesus floating down from heaven to earth to rest in the priest's hands. Once, when she gave the usual response to receiving the host ("Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof"), she heard a voice respond, "But I am worthy to enter you." As she received the bread, she said later that her soul merged with God so that "the soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish."

But all this vision-having did not make her popular with the local clergy of her time, most of whom found her befuddling, even frustrating. One Franciscan, Fr. Lazzarino, was very bothered by her, and sought a meeting to explain why she was Doing Faith Wrong. This did not go well for him, since meeting Catherine in person, and asking for her prayers, caused an acute attack of guilt that evening. He realized that he had not been following the Franciscan path as he had vowed as a youth, and he raced back to Catherine the next morning to apologize, and to give away all he owned to the poor.

As Catherine's reputation as a great persuader spread, she was sought out by popes and politicians as well -- and not just for guilt trips. She was a sought-after counsel to two popes, including Urban VI. She and Urban had such a close relationship that she would chide him frequently to curb his arrogance, and he insisted that she come to Rome to help him lead the Vatican.

After her death at age 33 in Rome, the people of Siena wanted to bring her body back home to be honored. One man from Siena tried to bring back just her head, but was stopped at the Roman gates by soldiers. He prayed to St. Catherine, and miraculously, when the bag was inspected, it had transformed into rose petals. To this day, Catherine’s head (and thumb) reside in Siena, and her body resides in Rome.

-- Megan Castellan

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If you woke up to the sound of Tim's voice this morning, we apologize. If your commute was rudely interrupted by talk of Lent Madness, we're sorry. If you spilled your skinny latte all over yourself and nearly drove your Volvo off the road at the mention of the Golden Halo, we're not liable (according to the Lent Madness Legal Team).

Such are the vagaries of having a story about Lent Madness appear on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. Reporter Deena Prichep spoke with Tim and then met the Lent Madness fanatics at St. Gabriel's Church in Portland, Oregon, a couple of weeks ago and the resulting story aired this morning.

We hear from St. Gabriel's vicar, the Rev. LouAnn Pickering, along with some folks who are "representing" one of the 32 saints in this year's bracket. Sure, there's some confusion between which of the Wesley brothers wrote all those hymns (we know it was Charles), but the sense of participatory joy comes through loud and clear.

Whoever wins this year's bracket, Lent Madness 2014 will go down as a devotion that shows no partiality when it comes to media coverage. What other Lenten devotion can claim it was covered by both FOX News and NPR? Talk about Red State/Blue State ecumenism!

To listen to the story, click here.

Thanks to all of you who continue to embrace this madness in the spirit in which we intend -- as a devotion to help introduce or re-introduce some pretty amazing folks who have served Jesus in their own way and in their own day. Sure, we have some fun along the way and, of course, Lent Madness isn't for everyone (certainly not the humorless). But, as Scott likes to say, "If you don't like it, go start your own online Lenten devotion."

In the meantime, please help us continue to spread the word about Lent Madness by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter, and illicitly making copies of the bracket at your office and then dropping then from a helicopter over your neighborhood. We'll see you tomorrow as Phillips Brooks takes on Catherine of Siena.