985 comments on “Nominations Open!”

1. Benazir Bhuto, Florence Nightingale, Eleanor Roosevelt, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther, and Elizabeth Fry

2. I nominate Hudson Stuck: priest and archdeacon, missionary, explorer and mountain climber.

   Stuck came to Texas from England in 1885. He worked as a cowboy and then as a schoolteacher in south central Texas before he went to the University of the South in 1889. Ordained to the priesthood in 1892, he became dean of St. Matthew's Cathedral in 1896.

   As Dean, he founded a night school for millworkers, a home for indigent women and St. Matthew's Children's Home. He worked to get the Texas legislature to pass the first law prohibiting child labor. And he regularly spoke out against lynching, which sadly was quite popular at the time.

   Stuck moved to Alaska in 1905, where he became Archdeacon of the Yukon and the Arctic, a territory that covered 250,000 square miles. Stuck and fellow missionary Charles E. Betticher founded numerous schools and missions to serve the native population across the territory.

   In 1907 Hudson founded St. John's in the Woods, a mission on the banks of the Koyukon River, some 500 miles from where it flows into the Yukon River. That was no day trip! And yet women missionaries made the long and arduous journey to serve there. One of them was Harriet Bedell, who made it all the way to the last round of Lent Madness in 2014, only to be defeated by Charles Wesley. That connection alone should give Hudson Stuck a place on the 2017 bracket.

   Stuck also started the Church Periodical Club to provide reading material to the Americans who lived in Alaska. This ministry continues today to provide Prayer Books, books for seminarians, educational materials, medical textbooks, agricultural manuals and books for those in local and global mission.

3. I would like to nominate Peter Abelard. I know, I know, he is not on any liturgical calendar (at least as far as I am aware). Blame St. Bernard of Clairvaux's anti-Ableard propaganda campaign, but he was an outstanding theologian. I discovered Peter Abelard many (way too many) years ago in college, and fell in love with the man ("historical necrophilia" as a favorite author terms it) and his theology. The concept of the Paraclete, the comforter, has helped and strengthened me in difficult times my whole life since. I love his Sic et Non -- who else in the 11th-12th centuries would have had the nerve to point out where church fathers contradicted themselves (or appeared to), even while teaching how context can be used to subtly reconcile them? His ideas that it is not wrong to question, that good intentions weigh in the balance, that the cross was most important as a teaching of love -- these matter, and deeply. And then there are the hymns he wrote for Heloise and her nuns: O What Their Joy and Their Glory Must Be can reduce me to tears. So, on what would be his feast day if anyone but me celebrated it, I nominate Peter Abelard. As he himself would have thought (humility NOT being one of his virtues), he is worth bending the rules for.

4. For your consideration:
   Chief Joseph, Nez Perce
   Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee

5. I recommend Anna Julia Cooper, wrote Voice from the South in 1892; she was born a slave in North Carolina; educated in an piscopal school, went to Oberlin, became educator and feminist

6. St. Norbert

7. St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows?
   It might get ugly and I personally don't approve of the uses to which he's been put of late, but his story is interesting and he'd make good cannon fodder (sorry) in the first round.

8. Catherine Winkworth - translator; commemorated in Episcopal calendar (along with John Mason Neale) Aug 7 and Lutheran one on July 1 for bringing German hymnody to English-speaking world...among other things. Unsung (ha) heroine in the fine-print credits of many of the hymns I grew up with.

   Henry Budd - first First Nations priest in Canada; commemorated 2 April in ACC prayer book, Dec 22 (with Lottie Moon) by ECUSA. http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/-anglicans-celebrate-175th-anniversary-of-devon-mission

   1. Catherine Winkworth- excellent idea. I second that.

9. Anselm of Canterbury and I submit a (favorite) quote. "Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved. "
   -Anselm of Canterbury   (c. 1033 - 21 April, 1109)

10. Eupsychios of Caesarea (d. 362)
    Got married, got "inflamed by zeal", got a mob of fellow Christians together and trashed the pagan Temple of Fortuna, got his head chopped off by Emperor Julian the Apostate. Soundtrack for write-up: the epic "O Fortuna" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXFSK0ogeg4. Also a chance to discuss the original "Wheel of Fortune". (Commemorated on Eastern Orthodox calendar, April 9)

11. Joachim:
    Anne's husband, Mary's dad, patron saint of father/grandfather/great-grandfather figures, as a nod to all the people who want to nominate ineligible televised father/grandfather/great-grandfather figures and a way for them to properly channel their devotion; commemorated July 26.

    (Mr Rogers was great of course; so was Mr. Dressup here in Canada. But I think they would both be the first to explain how important it is to follow reasonable rules, even when you're having fun. If both could be the first. Whatever. You know what I mean!)

12. I'd love to see a bracket entirely composed of "holy twins" -- competing Thomases who have done so much to define our faith: St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas a Kempis, St. Thomas Becket, St. Thomas More, and some of the creators of "Thomases" who have changed how we think about our society -- Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin), Mark Twain (those two brilliant observers of American society, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, as well as his brilliant indictments of American imperialism).

13. Hugh of Lincoln
    Thomas Beckett
    John XIII
    Aidan
    Bede
    Alcuin
    John Henry Hobart

14. Pope John XXIII

15. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (or just "Padre Pio" as he is more usually known)
    Edith Stein
    Charles de Foucauld
    Charbel Maklouf
    Margaret of Cortona

16. Dear highly exalted Supreme Executive Committee,
    I would like to submit a name that is not, as far as I know, on any church's calendar of saints. She is, however, known and studied - Hadewijch, a Beguine. She is a model for lay women - holy, unprofessed as were all Beguines, mistrusted by her society but living a life of benefit to that society. She was a mystic of great spiritual depth, who left a significant body of correspondence. I understand the rules, but suggest that there might be a process for someone known, studied and generally acknowledged as saintly.... what do you say?
    Lynn Sinnott

    1. Yes! Absolutely. I proposed Peter Abelard, who also is not on any calendar I know of but whose theology and beautiful hymns enrich us. Hadewijch is also important. I think both deserve inclusion.

    2. I support this nomination.

    3. Believe it or not, Hadewijch made it into the bracket in 2015! https://www.lentmadness.org/2015/02/hadewijch-vs-juan-diego/

    4. Wonderful nomination. I second it enthusiastically!

17. John Muir, for remarkable achievements of preservation of God's natural creation;
    Dr Martin Luther King, for his immense influence with civil rights;
    Harriet Ross Tubman, "Moses of her People" and the new $20 bill recognition;
    Jonathan Myrick Daniels, civil rights martyr;
    John Wyclif, for contributions to the Protestant Reformation;
    George Frederick Handel, composer extraordinaire.

    How can one possibly choose??!!

18. Aethelthryth and Elisabeth von Thüringen

19. Mother Theresa, MLK Jr., St. Theresa the little flower (she's the Saint of discernment), Elizabeth of Hungary, John of Patmos, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, and Jesus!!

20. David Pendleton Okerhater
    The first Native American Deacon

21. Nominate:
    David Pendleton Okerhater.
    The first native American Deacon
    A very worthy saint for consideration

22. I nominate St. Stephen, not just because our church is named after him but because he is considered by many to be the first martyr of Christianity, was mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. He was a deacon in the early church at Jerusalem who got a lot of important people in various synagogues pretty mad about his teachings. He was accused of blasphemy and at his trial he made a long speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgment on him and was then stoned to death. His martyrdom was witnessed by Saul of Tarsus, who, as we all know would later himself become a follower of Jesus and write a lot of letters with long run on sentences. And, because I think he would look really good on a mug.

    1. I agree - St. Stephen!
       And another deacon, David Pendleton Oakerhater.

23. It's Earth Day, so I am adding to the nominations for John Muir!

24. Henry St. George Tucker, former missionary to Japan, head of the Red Cross to Asiatic Russia, and then Presiding Bishop...not a relics and miracles saint, but a Communion of Saints variety, do-er and thinker

25. This Nominationtide I must propose
    St. Dunstan, who tweaked the Devil's nose
    With blacksmith's tongs,
    Feared not the wrath of king nor priest,
    But enjoined them to live humbly and to teach
    Both heart and hands of the common folk
    To improve their position.

    Scholar, Artist, Politician
    He used all his skill to commission
    Restorations
    Of buildings torn down,
    Of a priesthood turned 'round,
    Of respect for a Crown and the people it served,
    To improve their position.

    1. Love the poem! Very clever.

26. I would like to nominate Father Ted Howden.

    He was an Episcopal priest who chose to stay with his men and joined them in the Bataan Death march when the American soldiers were surrendered to the Japanese by our government during WWII. HE COULD HAVE RETURNED TO SAFETY AND HIS FAMILY because he was an officer and a chaplain. He would not desert the souls in his care. He died in captivity because he gave his little bits of food to others who were also starving so that they might live. In the Diocese of the Rio Grande we celebrate his life on Dec. 13 th. He cared for all the men irrespective of their religious beliefs.

27. I nominate Gregory of Nyssa because of his doctrine of endless growth in Christ
    I also nominate Anselm of Canterbury, the Venerable Bede, Aidan, and the early martyrs Perpetua and Blandina.

28. Thomas Merton
    Pope John XXIII
    Teilhard De Chardin

29. I nominate St. Aldhelm of Wessex – creative minister and sacred bard. Born in southwestern England in about 640, Aldhelm became a scholar famed all the way to Rome. He built the Abbey of Malmesbury into a center of learning and founded churches and other monasteries. But he didn’t just sit in his study writing Latin tracts for other clergy. He turned the life of Jesus and other Bible stories into Anglo-Saxon bardic songs. Then he went out with his harp and performed these songs where people gathered—in the marketplace, on the riverbank, on the bridge leading into town. To give his message even more pop, he would mix in funny stories, riddles, and popular songs. Aldhelm used his art and his sense of humor to reach people where they lived and worked, in ways they could relate to and understand. Plus, he never stopped being badass. When he was made bishop of the new diocese of Sherborne, he was 65. But not only did he remain Abbot of Malmesbury—by popular demand from his monks—he dove into the new work. He got a cathedral church built. He traveled around Wessex taking care of his flock. Four centuries after his death, historian William of Malmesbury reported that people in Wessex were still singing Aldhelm’s songs. His works are still alive. Just last year, poet A.M. Juster published a translation of Aldhelm’s poetic Latin riddles.

30. Two that I don't think have been nominated yet...

    Marguerite Porete
    Thomas Berry