Join Tim and Scott for the one and only pre-season episode of Lent Madness 2023. Or, if you're fancy, are a Roman gladiator, or think of Lent as the Super Bowl of the church year, you can call it Lent Madness XIV. In this episode, the Supreme Executive Committee shares some exciting news about a new location for 50% of the Lent Madness governing body (Spoiler Alert: Scott's still in Cincinnati).

As you watch, you might be inspired to visit the Lent Madness website and fill out an online bracket. If you do this, you can track your bracket-picking success compared with the rest of the Lent Madness global viewing public online. While the Lentorium is sold out of giant bracket posters, you can print your own giant bracket using the free image.

Whether you're using a beautiful professionally made giant bracket poster or a quick do-it-yourself special, why ruin it with your own semi-legible handwriting? Thanks to Fr. David Simmons of Waukesha, WI, we have a lovely label sheet for you to download FOR FREE. Just print out this sheet onto Avery 5160 labels, and your bracket will be museum-ready.

Please do invite your friends and neighbors to play Lent Madness. But don't forget to get yourself to church on Ash Wednesday to get your Lent off to the right start. Then enjoy the rest of the season as you alternate between repenting and voting.

See you on Ash Thursday (February 23) as Augustine of Hippo takes on Hippolytus on Opening Day of Lent Madness 2023!

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Following the heady days of Nominationtide, and the submission of hundreds of saintly nominations from the Lent Madness faithful, the Supreme Executive Committee is pleased to release the highly anticipated 2023 Lent Madness bracket. Following their Spring Retreat, held in a secure, undisclosed coffee shop, amid the consumption of massive amounts of single origin black coffee, Tim and Scott whittled the field to 32 saints, who will compete for the coveted Golden Halo.

This year's bracket is broken up into four themed quadrants: Ancient & Apostolic, Mostly Monastics, Royals Roundup, and Modern Mayhem. As always, the bracket contains well known saints along with some obscure ones. But they all inspire us by following Jesus in their own times and in their own ways. (click on the bracket below to enlarge and/or print it)

As a reminder, or if you're new to this wacky online devotion, you can learn how it all works by clicking here. Unlike professional and collegiate sporting events, there is no admission cost for Lent Madness, but souvenirs and study aids are available in the Lentorium. These include the ever-popular Saintly Scorecard: The Definitive Guide to Lent Madness 2023 (order as single copies or in discounted 10-packs) and giant Bracket Posters. All of which are AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW! 

Why pre-order Lenten materials before Advent? Because the Scorecards and Posters always sell out and you don’t want to disappoint anyone in your church and/or household. And if you're marking your calendar, Lent Madness begins on Ash Thursday, February 23.

We're pleased to welcome ten Celebrity Bloggers from across the country to write for Lent Madness 2023: the Rev. Laurie Brock of Lexington, KY; Anna Fitch Courie of Columbia, SC; Dr. David Creech of Moorhead, MN; the Rev. Megan Castellan of Ithaca, NY; Neva Rae Fox of Somerville, NJ; the Rev. Heidi Haverkamp of Indianapolis, IN; Emily McFarlan Miller of Chicago, IL; Miriam McKenney of Cincinnati, OH; the Rev. David Sibley of Walla Walla, WA, and the Rev. Eva Suarez of New York, NY.

In the meantime, start choosing your favorite saints and...Happy Lent!

For one full week, the Supreme Executive Committee will be accepting nominations for Lent Madness 2023. The nominating period will remain open through Monday, May 16, at which point this brief exercise in Lenten democracy will cease and the SEC will return to their regularly scheduled benevolently authoritarian ways.

Nominationtide, the most underrated of liturgical seasons, never begins at the same time other than the vague "sometime after Easter Day." This is partly because Tim and Scott have day jobs and partly because "whim" is one of their ecclesiastical charisms. But it's here! And the world rejoices!

To insure your SUCCESSFUL nomination, please note the Nominationtide Rules & Regulations, which reside in an ancient illuminated manuscript tended to by aged monks who have been set aside by saints and angels for this holy calling.

1. The nominee must, in fact, be dead.
2. The nominee must be on the official calendar of saintly commemorations of some church.
3. We will accept only one nomination per person.
4. You must tell us WHY you are nominating your saint.
5. The ONLY way to nominate a saint will be to leave a comment on this post.
6. That means comments left on Facebook, Twitter, attached to a brick and thrown through the window at Forward Movement headquarters, or placed on giant placards outside the residences of Tim or Scott don’t count.

As you discern saints to nominate, please keep in mind that a number of saints are ineligible for next year’s Saintly Smackdown. Based on longstanding tradition, this includes the entire field of Lent Madness 2022, those saints who made it to the Round of the Elate Eight in 2021 and 2020, and those from the 2019 Faithful Four.

Needless to say Jesus, Mary, Tim, Scott, past or present Celebrity Bloggers, and previous Golden Halo Winners are also ineligible. Below is a comprehensive list of ineligible saints. Please keep this in mind as you submit your nominations. Do not waste your precious nomination on an ineligible saint!

For the sake of "transparency," the rest of the process unfolds thusly: Tim and Scott will gather for the annual Spring SEC Retreat at a secure, undisclosed location/coffee shop to consider the nominations and create a full, fun, faithful, and balanced bracket of 32 saints. Then all will be revealed on All Brackets' Day, November 3rd. Or at least, "that's the ways we've always done it."

Time to nominate your favorite saint! But first, look over this list.

The Saints of Lent Madness 2022 (ineligible)

Stephen
Wenceslaus
Teresa of Avila
Crispin
Perpetua
Cecelia
Juliana of Liege
Blaise
Juana Inés de la Cruz
Gabriel the Archangel
Origen
Hilda of Whitby
Columbanos
Drogo
Mesrop Mashtots
Madeline Sophie Barat
Melania the Elder
Hilary of Poitiers
Aloysius Gonzaga
Thomas of Villanova
Felix of Burgundy
Oscar of Ansgar
Thomas Aquinas
Jerome
Emma of Hawaii
Hugh of Lincoln
José Gregorio Hernández
Constance of Memphis
James Holly
Lydia
Olaf
Kateri Tekakwitha

Past Golden Halo Winners (ineligible)

George Herbert, C.S. Lewis, Mary Magdalene, Frances Perkins, Charles Wesley, Francis of Assisi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Florence Nightingale, Anna Alexander, Martha of Bethany, Harriet Tubman, Absalom Jones, José Hernández

From 2019 to 2021 (ineligible)

Gobnait
Zenaida
Pandita Ramabai
Herman of Alaska
Hildegard of Bingen
Elizabeth Fry
Joseph
Camillus de Lellis
Benedict the Moor
Ives of Kermartin
Albert the Great
Theodore the Empress
Catherine Booth

As you contemplate your (single!) nomination, why not aid your reflection and sharpen your focus with a hot mug of your favorite beverage? The most effective way to do this, of course, is by reverently sipping out of a Lent Madness mug from the Lentorium. We assume you’ve already ordered your José Hernández 2022 Golden Halo winner mug, but if not, here’s the link.

Alleluia, Christ is risen and it's time for another episode of Monday Madness! The Lord is risen indeed, and Tim and Scott are here with an action-packed episode. Naturally, they celebrate the incredibly dramatic victory of Dr. José Hernández to win the 2022 Golden Halo. With just a three-vote margin, it was the closest champtionship contest in Lent Madness history.

You might like to celebrate the win of Dr. Hernández by raising a toast in a commemorative 2022 Golden Halo winner mug. Limited quantities will be produced, so get your order in today! We expect them to ship in early summer, but shipping dates and the exact final appearance of the mug may vary due to supply chain issues. But once they're gone, they're gone. Order yours today!

If you do order a mug, when your mug arrives, please send us your mug shot! We love sharing photos of the Lent Madness Global Viewing Public enjoying their coffee (or tea) while they discuss bracketology or relive the drama of the Saintly Sixteen.

Speaking of ordering things, if you're looking for a way to sustain Easter joy, Scott's latest book is Easter Triumph, Easter Joy: Meditations for the Fifty Days of Eastertide. You can get it in paper from Amazon, Forward Movement, or your local bookseller. It's also available as an ebook.

Tim wrote a humorous look at the season some years ago, Dust Bunnies in the Basket: Finding God in Lent & Easter, available as a book and ebook.

Visit the Lentorium regularly for updates on books and merchandise for Lent Madness fans.

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As you might guess, we're pretty devoted to Lent here at Lent Madness HQ. But even we have often said that Lent is the warm-up for the bigger season, the great fifty days of Easter. Indeed, the liturgy of the Episcopal Church reminds us that Lent is a season to "prepare with joy for the Paschal feast."

So let us be among the first to wish you a joyful and blessed Easter!

Whether you are celebrating José Hernández's win, weeping bitter tears over Teresa of Avila's narrow loss, or among those whose brackets were totally busted early on, Jesus rose for you. Jesus rose for saints and sinners, liberals and conservatives, old and young, and every glorious variety of human on this beautiful world in which we live.

In Easter we celebrate the triumph of God's grace and mercy over the powers of sin and death. The universe is changed, and for that we shout a hearty, "Alleluia!"

We worry though that some people have a momentary blip of Easter joy and then get on with business as usual, even though the cosmic powers of the status quo are permanently cast down.

Today we want to invite you to celebrate Easter for the full fifty days. There are lots of ways you can do that. Over at the 50 Days blog, you can find daily reflections for whole Easter season. Sign up to get daily emails, or just visit the site each day.

Tim and Scott have both written books to help you out. Scott's latest book, just published, is Easter Triumph, Easter Joy: Daily Meditations for the Fifty Days of Eastertide. You can get it in paper or start reading right away on your Kindle. Tim approached this time of year with humor in Dust Bunnies in the Basket: Finding God in Lent & Easter, also available in paper or for your Kindle.

You can decide to read the Book of Acts over the Easter season. Or commit to daily prayers. Write Alleluia on someone's sidewalk (in chalk!) every day. Find your own way to keep up the Easter joy.

Speaking of keeping up joy, there's one more annual appeal left for us to make. Forward Movement is proud to sponsor Lent Madness. It's a way to encourage more joy in a sometimes joy-less world and to help us see the ways Christ's light shines in the hearts of people of all cultures, races, types, and times. While we do sell some merch, we keep Lent Madness free for anyone who'd like to play.

Forward Movement offers other resources for free. If you or someone you know is wondering how to raise children in the faith, check out Grow Christians, a free resource for households with chidlren trying to sort out what it means to follow Jesus together. Forward Movement offers free podcasts, apps, and a rich daily prayer website, all for free. They also give over 100,000 books and booklets away for free each year, mostly to prisons, but also for hospitals, nursing homes, and military bases.

Everything Forward Movement does is made possible by the generosity of donors. If you are able to make a gift to help Forward Movement continue to share the Good News of God in Jesus Christ, your gift will make a difference. If you can't make a gift, that's OK too.

We wish you a joyous fifty days of Easter. Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.

In a year marked by razor-thin margins of victory, the championship round between Teresa of Avila and José Gregorio Hernández did not disappoint! In the end, José  snuck past Teresa in a photo finish to win the 2022 Golden Halo. Both of these saints captured the imaginations of the Lent Madness global voting public and both are worthy of this ecclesiastical accolade. We are pleased to award Teresa the (rare) Silver Halo to mark this year's accomplishments.

Rest assured the result, while exceedingly close, is accurate. The Supreme Executive Committee spent the morning in the mezzanine-level review booth conducting a forensic analysis of the voting. There was some cheating involved on both sides and we eliminated those votes (come ON, people!).

José joins previous Golden Halo winners George Herbert (2010), C.S. Lewis (2011), Mary Magdalene (2012), Frances Perkins (2013), Charles Wesley (2014), Francis of Assisi (2015), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2016), Florence Nightingale (2017), Anna Alexander (2018), Martha of Bethany (2019), Harriet Tubman (2020), and Absalom Jones (2021).

To celebrate José's victory, perhaps you'd like a commemorative mug? You can enjoy your favorite warm beverage (the SEC recommends fair trade single-origin coffee, though they understand these also work well with tea) while remembering this epic season of Lent Madness 2022. Order your own mug today! They're just $11 and should ship sometime in the early summer.

Would you like to nominate a saint for Lent Madness 2023? Tim and Scott will be opening up the week-long nomination process (aka Nominationtide) in the coming weeks. While many are called, only 32 are chosen. Stay tuned for details!

Finally, blessings to all as we head into the Triduum and enter into the death and resurrection of our Lord. It’s been a privilege to have you join us on our Lenten pilgrimage. Happy Lent!

In the closest Golden Halo voting in the history of Lent Madness, Teresa of Avila and José Hernández have taken the championship round down to the wire. While voting closes at 8 am Eastern Time, the Supreme Executive will be conducting a forensic analysis of the voting to insure the correct winner is announced. We appreciate your patience and look forward to sharing the good news with the world later today.

In many ways, this year's finale comes down to everything we love about Lent Madness. Teresa is a beloved saint who has inspired generations of Christians. While José has captured the imagination of the Lent Madness voting public, many of whom met him for the first time. Whoever ends up winning the Golden Halo, we have all been enriched by the presence of these two saintly souls throughout this season of Lent.

Thanks for you forbearance as we work to certify the results of this election. We are committed to getting this right!

The end (of Lent Madness 2022) is near! It's hard to believe we kicked things off over five weeks ago on “Ash Thursday” with 32 saintly souls. With your help, the field has been whittled down to just two: Teresa of Avila and José Hernández. Who will receive the coveted 2022 Golden Halo? That, friends, is up to you.

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Who will face Teresa of Avila for the Golden Halo? That's the question of the day as Thomas of Villanova squares off against José Hernández. Yesterday, Teresa advanced to the championship round by narrowly defeating Madeleine Sophie Barat 52% to 48%. We're getting close!

In case you missed yesterday's episode of Monday Madness, you can watch it here.

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The frenetic pace of Lent Madness continues with the arrival of the Faithful Four! Which of these four amazing saints will win the Golden Halo? Only time -- and your votes -- will tell. Tim and Scott are here with a look at the Faithful Four and the next few days of Monday Madness. The end is nearly upon us and we're anticipating a high energy saintly crescendo.

Besides learning the real names of the first few days of Holy Week, this episode features gratitude to our illustrious company of Celebrity Bloggers and all the others who work hard to make Lent Madness a huge global phenomenon (for a Lenten devotion).

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