It's the moment you've all been waiting for: the unveiling of the 2024 Lent Madness bracket! Stay tuned for the SEC's color commentary on the bracket, highlighting some of the epic contests that will take place over the course of Lent Madness 2024. Right now you should read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the bracket. Then brag to all your friends about how you've memorized all the match-ups and can't wait for Lent to begin.

Click the image to see a larger version. Or you can download a PDF for printing your very own copy.

Once you have the bracket in your hot little hand, don't stop by simply posting it on your refrigerator. The Supreme Executive Committee offers a few suggestions for helping spread the Lent Madness word.

1. Post a copy of the bracket on the front door of your church. In fact, why stop at your church? Channel your inner Martin Luther and nail the bracket to the doors of every church in your neighborhood. With giant Lenten nails!
2. Get the bracket tattooed to your back. You'll be a big hit when you go swimming at the Y.
3. Mail them out with all your Christmas cards this year. "Lent Madness: It's the Reason for the Season."
4. Go to the mall and put them under the windshields of every car in the parking lot. For Jesus.
5. Get front row seats at televised sporting events and hold up the bracket. Consider it the new John 3:16 sign. Rainbow wig optional.
6. Turn the bracket into a sandwich board and wander through Times Square. Bonus points if you simultaneously hand out copies of the bracket as if you work for a discount electronics store.
7. Staple a copy of the bracket to your dog's collar and let her roam around the neighborhood sans leash.
8. Rent a helicopter (or “borrow” one) and make brackets rain down upon the local populace.
9. Now that those Halloween pop-up stores have closed for the season, convert one into a Bracket pop-up store.
10. Memorize all 16 matchups and yell them out to everyone on the village green like some kind of penitential town crier.

Feel free to share other ideas (with photo documentation) of course. They may just end up on the Lent Madness Facebook page.

Don't forget to order your very own 2024 Lent Madness Bracket Poster! They're just $15 each, or pay only ten bucks if you order five or more. Get one for home, one for the car, one for work, and one for everyone on your street. Your parish priest will be delighted when she or he sees you've added a bit of Lent Madness spirit by attaching a bracket to the altar frontal or pulpit. Pre-order now, and be among the first to enjoy the poster!

Remember, Advent is coming. Especially if you use purple vestments at your church, think of this as a dress rehearsal for Lent. You can keep your perspective by buying Lent-themed gifts for everyone on your shopping list this Christmas.

Happy Lent!

For one full week, the Supreme Executive Committee will be accepting nominations for Lent Madness 2024. The nominating period will remain open through Saturday, May 27, 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 nominee 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 2023, those saints who made it to the Round of the Elate Eight in 2022 and 2021, and those from the 2020 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! (it happens more than you'd think)

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.

Time to nominate your favorite saint! But first, look over this list. Don't throw away your shot.

The Saints of Lent Madness 2023 (ineligible)

Augustine of Hippo
Hippolytus of Rome
Monica
Joanna the Myrrh Bearer
Simeon Bachos
Blandina
Brendan of Clonfert
David of Wales
Rutilio Grande
Josephine Bakhita
Eric Liddell
Dorothy Sayers
Enmegabowh
Florence Li Tim-Oi
Nicolaus von Zinzendorf
Martin de Porres
Maximus the Confessor
Cuthmann of Steyning
Leoba
J.S. Bach
Harriet Monsell
Scholastica
Richard Hooker
Olga of Kiev
Bertha of Kent
Stanislaus the Martyr
Edmund
Chief Seattle
Botulph
John Donne
Juan Diego

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 Hernandez, Jonathan Daniels

From 2020 to 2022 (ineligible)

Teresa of Avila
Juliana of Liege
Origen
Madeleine Barat
Thomas of Villanova
Thomas Aquinas
James Holly
Camillus de Lellis
Benedict of Nursia
Ives of Kermartin
Arnulf of Metz
Albert the Great
Catherine of Genoa
Catherine Booth
Hildegard of Bingen
Elizabeth Fry
Joseph