Gripped by Lent Madness Withdrawal (LMW) today? Wondering what to do, since you can't check the voting tallies every two minutes? Trying to figure out how you'll contain yourself until it's time to vote on Monday? We're here to help.

First, you might like to take advantage of some excellent resources from Forward Movement. With Holy Week around the corner, why not curl up with The Preaching of the Passion: The Seven Last Words from the Cross by the Rev. Peter J. Gomes? There are other resources for Holy Week and Eastertide as well.

We're also pleased to announce a great way to read yourself through Eastertide, A Journey With Matthew: The 50 Day Bible Challenge.

Take a journey through the Gospel of Matthew with fifty days of scripture readings, meditations, questions, and prayers. Twenty-five dynamic spiritual leaders and authors serve as guides, writing from around the world about the wisdom, lessons, and parables shared by Matthew, one of the great apostles and evangelists. A Journey with Matthew is an extension of The Bible Challenge, a global initiative to encourage daily engagement with scripture and an exploration of the Word of God.

Authors include: David Anderson, Frederick Borsch, Paul Butler, Bo Cox, Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, Michael Curry, Clifton Daniel, Mary Gray-Reeves, Scott Gunn, Daniel R. Heischman, Graham James, Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Bolly anak Lapok, Tracy Lind, Stephen Lyon, Ian S. Markham, Kate Moorehead, Barry Morgan, Riaz Mubarak, Sam Portaro, Jeremiah Sierra, Becca Stevens, Ray Suarez, Hillary T. West, and Marek P. Zabriskie.

There's more, but it's time to turn the floor over to our favorite deceased color commentators, Archbishops Thomas Cranmer and John Chrysostom. Enjoy!

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.

It's hard to believe but we are now officially halfway through the Round of the Saintly Sixteen. Four more battles and we're on to the Elate Eight. But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. To savor each day and immerse ourselves in the match-up at hand is part of the Lent Madness discipline. Speaking of which, we really do need to update the Ash Wednesday liturgy's "Invitation to a Holy Lent" to read:

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; by reading and meditating on God's holy Word; and by participating in Lent Madness.

But we digress. Today it's the Biblical vs. the Mystical as Lydia takes on John of the Cross.

Yesterday Anna Cooper shocked the G-clef off J.S. Bach 54% to 46% to advance to the Elate Eight. She'll face the winner of Thomas Merton vs. Charles Wesley. We also learned of the impending cross-marketing deal between McDonald's and Lent Madness that perhaps fell under the "Fool for Christ" heading.

And finally, you may have been rudely roused from your dreams this morning by a story about Lent Madness on National Public Radio. We apologize.

Lydia

St. Lydia Thyatira appears only twice in the Biblical text, but her impact is much larger.  

As the first European convert to Christianity, she was baptized by Paul right after he came to Philippi, and there, she started a church in her own household. Early church planter, that's Lydia! She starts the community that will grow into the church at Philippi, and receive the famous letter from Paul. 

This is a big deal, scholars opine, not only because it indicates that Lydia was clearly calling all the shots for her household, and established one of the first Christian communities in Europe, but also because of what it means for gender roles in the early church: men and women were called, men and women were baptized, and men and women led in ministry. And after his release from prison, Paul and Silas headed right back to Lydia's house. It served as a de facto home base the entire time they were in Philippi.

It also indicates that Lydia, who had amassed quite a fortune as a dyer, had decided to dedicate her considerable financial resources to Paul and his work. This would be why she is now invoked as the patron saint of dyers, and all fabric workers, and a good thing, too. Obtaining the purple dye for which the city of Thytira was known required the patience of a saint all by itself. 

Purple dye came from a particular secretion from the spiny dye-murex, a sort of carnivorous sea snail. (Yes, such a thing exists). You obtained it in one of two ways: either you 'milked' the sea snail and poked the thing until it spat purple goo at you, or you gathered a lot of them together and crushed them into a mass of purple goo. And even then, twelve thousand snails yields only enough dye for the hem of a single garment, which is why purple was reserved for the very rich, for emperors. (This is also why the Church adopted purple for the Lenten array -- to emphasize the kingship of Christ. Sorry, snails).

To this day, no one has managed to recreate the special sort of Thyatiran purple exactly as it was back then. The exact recipe is lost to history. But Lydia's legacy of leadership, ministry, and giving nothing less than her best to Christ endures.

-- Megan Castellan

 John of the Cross

If you’ve ever endured debilitating periods of loneliness and despair in your life of faith, you have a loving companion in Saint John of the Cross. John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, wrote about such experiences in his popular and well-regarded books, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night of the Soul, both of which he wrote while being imprisoned by his fellow friars. John explained that the journey toward union with God necessitated detaching from self and the world. Noting that often times this process felt excruciating and ripe with loss, dejection, and uncertainty, John encouraged believers to remember that God had not abandoned them. As he said,

Faith is a dark night for man, but in this very way it gives him light...God sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially, even though it be that of the greatest sinner in the world, and this union is natural. The supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s will are in conformity. Therefore the soul rests transformed in God through love.

Although John wrote most of his works in his mid-thirties, he had long been a person of deep compassion and faith. When he was 14, he served as a caregiver to hospital patients suffering from mental or terminal illnesses. Doing so helped him realize the richness of life with God and the futility of finding happiness in worldly possessions. For John, happiness was circumstantial, but joy was eternal and rooted in God’s love. He likened someone who settled for happiness alone to a “famished person who opens his mouth to satisfy himself with air.”

John’s works and humble life have influenced people for generations, including fellow Lent Madness competitor Thomas Merton, who wrote about John’s influence in his well-regarded Seven Story Mountain. John’s Dark Night also found voice in the work of T.S. Eliot, who expressed the sentiment of John’s works through poetry:

To arrive where you are, to get from you are not,
You must go by a way in which there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are no
You must go through the way in which you are not.

John’s life of love, poverty, and selflessness reminds us of the joy of seeking Christ and the eternal love of God that always enfolds us –- no matter what we feel or endure.

-- Maria Kane

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The following article first appeared on Episcopal Cafe's The Lead. While we're generally grumpy about the fact that this "cafe" still hasn't delivered our double espressos, we're impressed with their nose for news. They scooped every other media outlet to get this story, including the SEC. Tim and Scott did want to squash one rumor, however: they will not be changing the name to Lent McMadness.

Innovative Marketing Deal Announced

Forward Movement has entered into an agreement with international fast-food giant McDonald's to issue special Lenten Happy Meals featuring popular saints in what will be called “Holy Heroes Happy Meal.”

Starting this Holy Week, you can get an action figure of saints voted on by fans of Lent Madness, an annual project of Forward Movement of Cincinnati, Ohio.

“We feel this imaginative product spin-off will benefit both parties in countless ways,” said Scott Gunn, Executive Director of Forward Movement.

“Every Lent many thousands of Christians take to the brackets and vote their favorite saints until one and only one wins the Golden Halo,” says Jeff Stratton, President of McDonald's USA. “We can’t imagine anything more inspiring than a Julia Chester Emery or Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereshewsky action figure in a child’s Happy Meal.”

"We got the idea to partner with McDonald's by thinking about St. Lawrence who was roasted to death," said the Rev. Tim Schenck, who first came up with the idea for Lent Madness. "After he was in the fire for a while, he called out 'I'm done on the side, turn me over.' We appreciate a guy who kept his sense of humor to the last. And McDonald's does too."

It is understood that this promotion will appeal to more than just children.

“We expect that many adults will snap these up as collector’s items,” said Gunn. “Many bookshelves in many clergy offices will no doubt be enhanced by their mere presence. Seminary texts that haven’t be touched for years will certainly be spiffed up by these characters!”

Celebrity bloggers will create the fun and informative texts that will accompany each meal printed on every box.

Predicting which saints to produce will be tricky. For example, Shereshewsky was voted out in early voting in this year’s brackets but after the production run was ordered. It was confirmed that past Golden Halo winners Frances Perkins and Mary Magdalene will be available. “While these figures won’t substitute for Lent Madness itself, we foresee a new level of saintly silliness as this partnership proceeds.”

With the corporate sponsorship, the only required change was to give the winner "Golden Arches" rather than the traditional Golden Halo. Gunn and Schenck agreed the change was worth it: "We've super-sized this one!"

In a 2014 bracket quirk, Celebrity Blogger Heidi Shott is shepherding her "Killer B's" through the Saintly Sixteen this week. Bach, Bedell, and Brooks are all doing battle over the next few days. Today we begin Heidi Week with J.S. Bach taking on Anna Cooper in a contest between an activist and a musician. One key to this contest will be the critical bassoonist vote. Will they rally behind a fellow musician or take umbrage with one of their own once being called a "nanny-goat bassoonist?"

Yesterday, in a tight race, Harriet Beecher Stowe managed to hold off Alcuin 53% to 47% and will face the winner of Harriet Bedell vs. Thomas Gallaudet in the Elate Eight.

Don't forget, you can always find links to the match-ups of the previous rounds on the Bracket page. Can't remember where Anna Cooper grew up? Need a reminder about the number of children J.S. Bach sired? Go look it up and become a better informed Lent Madness voter.

PS. Your shoelaces are untied.

Anna Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper -- the daughter of an enslaved women and a white slave master – was an educator and tireless advocate for the rights, dignity, and opportunities of women and people of color during the early twentieth century. Anna's cause was not only about empowering women, it was also about ensuring the dignity of the entire human race as a reflection of God’s likeness. Nevertheless, she recognized that black women had a unique perspective on the matter because of their sex and race. As she explained,

The colored woman feels that woman's cause is one and universal; and that not till the image of God, whether in parian or ebony, is sacred and inviolable; not till race, color, sex, and condition are seen as the accidents, and not the substance of life; not till the universal title of humanity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is conceded to be inalienable to all; not till then is woman's lesson taught and woman's cause won -- not the white woman's, nor the black woman's, nor the red woman's, but the cause of every man and of every woman who has writhed silently under a mighty wrong.

She fearlessly chastised Christians for being complacent about injustice and advocated for greater recognition of the immeasurable value of women. In her well-known work, A Voice from the South, she wrote:

The earnest well-trained Christian young woman, as a teacher, as a home-maker, as wife, mother, or silent influence even, is as potent a missionary agency among our people as is the theologian; and I claim that at the present stage of our development in the South she is even more important and necessary.

Never one to back down from a challenge, she had pursued the “gentlemen’s” course of study at Oberlin College over the more genteel program for women. After many years as a teacher, principal, and advocate, at the age of 57, she adopted her nephew’s five children while simultaneously working toward her PhD.  (So, yes, we know you just celebrated your 80^th birthday Gloria Steinem, but Anna Cooper could run circles around you. Did you get a PhD at 67? I don’t think so).

In a time when women were expected to be quiet and people of color were threatened with violence, Anna refused to succumb to fear or comfort. Instead, she relied upon education and Christian compassion over violence, a lesson from which the short-tempered, bassoon-fighting Bach could have benefited. (So much for turning the other cheek, eh?)

Anna died in 1964 at the age of 105. In 2009, the Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School in Richmond, Virginia, opened in her honor and provides a faith-based education to students of limited means.

-- Maria Kane

Johann Sebastian Bach

Over the years I’ve known many 18 year-old males and, indeed, felt a great fondness for a number of them, but I can assure you that I don’t recall one -- even the musicians among them -- ever saying anything like this: “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."

Still, despite the odds, such were the words uttered by Johann Sebastian Bach, a young church organist in Arnstadt, Germany, in 1703. Indeed, Bach signed hundreds of his church compositions and some of his secular works with the initials S.D.G., an abbreviation for the Latin term Soli Deo Gloria meaning “Glory to God alone.”

While many of the saints who find their way into the bracket have left behind theological treatises, sermons, devotional poetry, and other writings, Bach left behind little written work to demonstrate his faithfulness. David Mendel argues in The Bach Reader, “For the expression of emotion, however, Bach hardly needed to resort to words. The focus of his emotional life was undoubtedly in religion, and in the service of religion through music...That his church music was designed to deepen the worship of God and to embellish His service need not be emphasized.”

It is not just Bach’s many biographers who see the hand of God in how Bach offered his gifts to the world. Words of praise from other composers, contemporary through the present day, abound. Claude Debussy said famously, “And if we look at the works of J.S. Bach — a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity — on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered.”

Faithful Christian and musical genius though he was, Bach seems to have admitted to a few human foibles. His short comic opera on the pleasures of coffee-drinking, Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Be still, stop chattering), was performed regularly at a coffee house in Leipzig. We have record of two other of his habits -- a penchant for smoking tobacco and writing poetry -- in a collection he dedicated to his second wife, Anna Magdalena, in "The Second Little Clavier Book.” One verse reads:

How oft it happens when one’s smoking:
The stopper’s missing from its shelf,
And one goes with one’s finger poking
Into the bowl and burns oneself.
If in the pipe such pain doth dwell,
How hot must be the pains of Hell.

A bit of a wag, Bach once said, “It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.” But he also said, “Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.”

Well-played.

-- Heidi Shot

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You know what's great about today? (Well, besides the fact that it's Monday and a lot of clergy -- and half of the Supreme Executive Committee -- have the day off). We begin an entire week of Saintly Sixteen match-ups! We kick things off with a 19th century laywoman taking on an 8th century deacon. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Alcuin vie for a spot in the Elate Eight.

If you missed the Archbishops' preview of the week ahead, click here. And then subscribe to Lent Madness by entering your e-mail address (on the right side of the home page under the Voting 101 video) so you never miss anything pertaining to Lent Madness ever again. Why get caught at a loss for words around the water cooler when your co-workers ask how you voted  yesterday and you tell them you forgot? If your boss hears of your total disregard for Lent Madness you may even lose your job. So please. Subscribe to Lent Madness. The global economy is depending on you.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the Lowly, got an early start in her literary career. When she was 13, she graduated from the local girls' school in Litchfield, Connecticut. Her composition, entitled, "Can the immortality of the soul be proved by the light of nature?" was read aloud at the ceremony. Her father, Lyman Beecher, at the time the most famous preacher in the country, wanted to know who the smart aleck was, and was shocked to learn it was his daughter. Harriet was thrilled with herself.

Initially content to stay out of the argument over slavery in the mid-1800s, two events changed Harriet's mind. The first was the death of her 18-month-old son, in the Cincinnati cholera epidemic of 1849. Cholera was new to the United States at the time, so there was no medical treatment. Afterwards, Harriet wrote that she didn't think she could ever be reconciled to the child's death, unless it allowed her to do some great good for others -- but that the loss also helped her empathize with slave mothers who lost their children on the auction block.

When the Fugitive Slave Law was passed the next year, directly implicating even those in Northern states in the institution of slavery, Harriet knew she needed to do something. She said later: "I no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house, thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist."

She approached the editor of the anti-slavery paper, the National Era, proposing that she write three or four short sketches, which grew into a serialized form of Uncle Tom's Cabin.  

The intense popularity of the book enraged the slaveholding establishment, causing them to accuse Harriet of fabrication and lying through her teeth, but Harriet was prepared. She published A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in 1854, in which she directed her white audience to the numerous slave narratives that she had used in her research for her novel, essentially arguing that, if she had lied, it had been to tone down the horrible truth about slavery. It had the added benefit of bringing the first-person slave narratives of Solomon Northrup (of “12 Years a Slave” fame), Frederick Douglass, and many others, to a wider audience. 

"What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic," she wrote. Very appropriate for such a feisty character.

-- Megan Castellan

Alcuin

This quirky 8th Century teacher, theologian, liturgist, and bad poet was responsible for the Christian-based European renaissance that went hand-in-hand with the reign of Charlemagne, a program that was especially focused on educating the clergy so they could educate the people. One of his most notable achievements was to convince Charlemagne that forcing people to accept baptism or be executed was not good Christian policy.

He was also the inventor of the Carolingian miniscule, a form of writing that allowed so many ancient texts to be quickly and clearly reproduced. He may even have been the inventor of the question mark, which, in addition to inspiring the 60’s band ? & The Mysterians to challenge us all to cry 96 tears, was prominently featured in his discourses and other teaching documents.

Here is such an example, a discourse between Pippin, Charlemagne’s son, and Alcuin:

P. What is life?
A. A delight to the blessed, a grief to the unhappy, an experience of waiting for death.
P. What is death?
A. An inevitable happening, an unpredictable journey, the tears of the living, the coming into force of a testament, the robber of human beings.
P. What is a human being?
A. A slave to death, a traveller passing through, a stranger in the place.
P. To what is a human being similar?
A. To a fruit tree.
P. What is his or her situation?
A. Like that of a candle in the wind. (translated by Gillian Spraggs)

Alcuin wrote many textbooks, including the Propositions for Sharpening Youth that included problems like this one:

A certain  man needed  to take  a wolf,  a she-goat, and a  load of cabbage across a  river. However, he could only find a boat which would carry two of these  [at a  time]. Thus, what rule did he employ so as to get all of them across unharmed? (Translated from the Latin by Peter J. Burkholder) (Post your answer in the comments!)

His Bible translation (an update of Jerome’s Vulgate combined with the Northumbrian Ceolfrith Bible) was produced in volumes that contained both illumination (sometimes with gold letters on purple vellum) and illustration and text arranged in cartoon-strip-like registers, thus bringing the Irish tradition of illuminated Gospels to the European continent.

Toward the end of his life, he wrote this about his career:

In the morning, at the height of my powers, I sowed the seed in Britain, now in the evening when my blood is growing cold I am still sowing in France, hoping both will grow, by the grace of God, giving some the honey of the holy scriptures, making others drunk on the old wine of ancient learning…

-- Penny Nash

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Before we bring you this week's update from everyone's favorite deceased archbishops, we'd like to alert you to some excellent resources for children (or children at heart). Yes, one could view this as a shameless advertisment from Forward Movement, the sponsors of Lent Madness. Or one could choose to view this as a helpful advertisement from your friends who bring you the most beloved devotional publication in the universe. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

Assuming you decided you liked this sort of thing, we wanted to tell you about a couple of resources for children. What? You didn't know Forward Movement made stuff for kids? That's the point! For example, check out The Spy on Noah's Ark, by the Rev. Lindsay Hardin Freeman with illustrations by Paul Shaffer, in which unusual characters share their view of famous Bible stories.

Bible stories take on new life with this collection of eyewitness accounts from surprise sources: a dove, a lion, a stallion, and more. Using the ancient and imaginative art of storytelling, this book will delight children of all ages and begs to be read aloud. Adults will also enjoy these stories, and can use them to enrich personal and group Bible study. Discussion questions for children and adults are included at the end of each story, making it the perfect book for a church "On the Same Page" reading group or other intergenerational program.

If that's not your cup of tea, we offer books that are straight-out fun, with education build in. Two popular titles are Can You Find Jesus? and Can You Find Saints? When Christmas gets a bit closer, we offer a collection of contemporary presentations of traditional Christmas hymns. Don't forget beautifully told stories for Christmas and Michaelmas, Star of Wonder and Season of Angels.

Last, but not least, one of the things we've heard regularly is that families want tools to talk about faith at home. To that end, we created Daily Devo. It's a simple, daily email message that contains a very brief reflection on the assigned scripture readings, a video that's related, some action to take, and a simple prayer. It's all intended to offer a starting point for conversation at the dinner table or bedtime or whatever. You can see a sample and learn a bit more online.

Now that the ads are over, we bring you the archbishops.

Remember, LentMadnessTV offers loads of entertainment. Watch every episode, and then watch them again with your friends and neighbors.

To: Our Well-Beloved Viewers in Christ

From: The Archbishops -- Colour Commentators of Lent Madness

Heaven via The Clairvoyatron 2100
Maple Anglican’s Basement
[Redacted]
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Greetings,

It is with great joy that we wish to announce that our well-beloved in Christ, Mary Ann Grennen, has been drawn as the winner of the contest for a Lent Madness Coffee Mug.

Mary Ann's question to us from March 20th was:

If you had to choose between the NY Yankees and NY Mets who would you choose? This question is coming from a diehard from birth Mets fan.

We have requested through our esteemed fellow servant in Christ, the Reverend Scott Gunn, Executive Director of Forward Movement and member of the Supreme Executive Commitee, to ship her one.

We also wish to thank all those who submitted questions via Twitter, Facebook, Email, and Google+.

This we proclaim in the One-Thousandth Six-Hundredth and Eighteenth, and Four-Hundred and Eighty-Second Years of our Consecrations and the Second Year as Colour Commentators of Lent Madness in the Two-Thousandth Fourteenth Year of Our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ.

++John (Konstantinoúpolis)

++Thomas (Cantar)

PS. Mets