331 comments on “Nominationtide is upon us!”

1. I nominate the legendary John Lewis, the "Conscience of the Congress," beaten and arrested for being a "Freedom Rider," who advised, "Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America."— Lewis speaking atop the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 1, 2020.

2. St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost things. Anthony or Antony of Padua (Italian: Antonio di Padova) or Anthony of Lisbon (Portuguese: António de Lisboa; born Fernando Martins de Bulhões; 15 August 1195 – 13 June 1231[1][2]) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. He was born and raised by a wealthy family in Lisbon, Portugal, and died in Padua, Italy. Noted by his contemporaries for his powerful preaching, expert knowledge of scripture, and undying love and devotion to the poor and the sick, he was one of the most quickly canonized saints in church history. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church on 16 January 1946. He is also the patron saint of lost things.
   He has ALWAYS come through for me - he would be a very worthy candidate for Lent Madness.

3. I nominate Saint Francis of Assisi. He was born to a rich family, but gave up his wealth to serve God. He is the patron saint of animals and the natural environment. Saint Francis attempted to put an end to the crusades by trying to convert the Sultan in Egypt to convert to Christianity. Another thing that I love about Saint Francis is how he started the tradition of making nativity scenes at Christmas. His feast day is the fourth of October. The reason I nominate Saint Francis is mostly because of his love for animals and because of his creation of the nativity scene. I love both animals and Christmas.

   1. I nominate St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. She led a search for the cross that Jesus was crucified on. Three crosses were found and one cured an afflicted woman when she touched it. Pieces of it were then sent to Rome and Constantinople. St. Helena is also the person who converted Constantine to Christianity, making the Roman Empire finally a safe place for Christians. Saint Helena is also the patron Saint of divorced people, converts, empresses, difficult marriages p, and archeologists. I nominate her because I am interested in both the history of the church and in archeological finds that tell us about the past.w

      1. I would like to second the nomination for Helena. On a pilgrimage to Jerusalem a few years back, our very well informed guide told us that her archeological finds have held up remakably well to our best knowledge. Legend has it she would parade through Jerusalem saying “I want that Cross!” A force to be reckoned with and worthy of inclusion to Lent Madness again

   2. Francis of Assisi has already won the golden halo and is therefore ineligible. See list above.

      1. Found that out too late, and can’t delete the nomination. So I nominated St. Helena.

4. I am nominating Saint Brigid. Saint Brigid looks after newborn babies. I work at a facility named Brigids Path where we treat only babies that are exposed and withdrawling from opioid addiction. We are a non profit and with Saint Brigids help, working miracles in the lives of our babies and families.

5. A reasoned plea to declare the Rev. Fred McFeely Rogers eligible to participate as a “contestant” in Lent Madness.

   While the SEC has stated that in order to be eligible for inclusion in the “Saintly Smackdown” a candidate, “should be in the sanctoral calendar of one or more churches.” They have also decreed that they seek to present, “A balanced bracket of saints ancient and modern, Biblical and ecclesiastical representing the breadth and diversity of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”

   The Reverend Fred McFeely Rogers, was a life-long member of, and ordained as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). While it is noted that the PC(USA) does not maintain a “sanctoral calendar,” it should also be noted that, in 2003 at the 215th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) the Assembly passed an overture to “observe a memorial time for the Reverend Fred M. Rogers.” The rationale for the overture stated that the Rev. Rogers, “had a profound effect on the lives of millions of people across the country through his ministry to children and families. Mister Rogers promoted and supported Christian values in the public media with his demonstration of unconditional love.” This recognition is as close as you can get to sainthood in Presbyterian circles. There is also an annual recognition of Mister Rogers as Family Communications, Inc. (producer of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) has named March 20 "Won't You Wear A Sweater?" Day.

   Should the Rev. Rogers be selected to participate, the Celebrity Blogger tasked with promoting his cause would have ample historical documents from which to draw for biographical detail. There are many sources for quotes and quibbles, as well as an excellent place to go for the round of kitsch (https://www.fredrogers.org/frc/store/). There is also the huge fan base he has in the Lent Madness family. There’s a good chance he would show well.

   In conclusion:
   1. Fred Rogers has been recognized by an established ecclesiastical body for his Christian walk and witness. (It’s not our fault Presbyterians don’t “do” saints)
   2. Fred Rogers already has his own “day” on the calendar (maybe not a “church” calendar, but a calendar, nonetheless)
   3. Including Fred Rogers in Lent Madness would be yet more proof of the magnanimous and ecumenical nature of the SEC. (It would also give us Presbyterians someone to cheer for – the Methodists have the Wesleys, and the Lutherans have Luther, we deserve someone other than Calvin or Knox)
   4. Since the SEC makes the rules, they can also choose to bend (as in awarding a Silver Halo) or even ignore the rules.

   Thank you for your consideration

   1. I second The Rev. Fred Rogers! He inspired young and old alike and has been recognized by an ecclesiastical body.

   2. "We deserve someone other than Calvin or Knox." Such a good writeup. Daniel the Sock Puppet applauds.

      1. I second this motion!

   3. I second this, Fred Rogers should be nominated

   4. I am happy to hear he is officially recognized by the PCUSA. Early saints became Saints solely on the devotion of the people. We have that here with Fred Rogers. The people of Lent Madness and far beyond recognize him as a Saint!

6. I am nominating Etty Hillesum 1914-1943; a Jewish girl who was killed in Auschwitz.She kept diaries of her short life: "An Interrupted Life" which are inspiring.

7. St David, patron saint of Wales!

8. I nominate Archdeacon McDonald, a real flesh and blood saint, who left a Christian legacy for the G’wichen people. Here is his story, copied wholeus bolus from Wikipedia!
   “Born. November 7, 1829
   Red River Colony, Rupert's Land
   Died August 20, 1913
   Winnipeg, Manitoba
   Venerated in
   Anglican Church of Canada, Episcopal Church (United States)
   Feast
   30 August, 15 December
   Early life Edit
   A second generation Canadian, Robert McDonald was born in 1829 to Scots immigrant Neil McDonald, an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, and his wife Ann Logan (daughter of a retired Hudson's Bay trader) at Point Douglas, Red River Colony (what became Winnipeg, Manitoba).[1] The second of ten children, McDonald attended the Red River Academy until he was 15, then helped his father on the family farm for four years before taking a position with the Methodist mission at Norway House.[2]

   Career Edit
   McDonald also studied at St. John's Collegiate School (predecessor of the University of Manitoba founded in 1877), which enabled him to take holy orders as an Anglican deacon in 1852. Bishop David Anderson of Rupert's Land ordained him as a priest in 1853. His first posting was at the White Dog (or Islington) Mission at the junction of the Winnipeg and Lac Seul Rivers among the Ojibwe people, now known as the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations or Whitedog First Nation. Using a syllabic method and Latin alphabet, McDonald began translating the Bible into Ojibwe (also known as Ojibwa or Chippewa]], and completed the minor prophets before his next assignment.

   In 1862, the Church Missionary Society sent McDonald to the Yukon Territory, where he became the first Protestant missionary ever assigned to work among indigenous peoples of the Arctic. His work involved extensive travel in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, as well as what became Alaska. When gold was discovered, McDonald became the first missionary in the Klondike. He also interacted with Catholic and Russian Orthodox missionaries, sometimes sharing translators among the various tribes in his vast assigned territory. In over forty years, Rev. McDonald baptised over 2000 people, adults as well as children, and educated many at schools he established. His initial station, at Ft. Yukon, was thought to be in Canada, but turned out to be in Alaska. He later worked along the Porcupine River and established another base at Fort McPherson on the Peel River.

   McDonald spent most of the next four decades working among the Gwich'in people (who call themselves Dinjii Zhuu, and which was sometimes transcribed as "Tinjiyzoo"). However, in 1872, he accepted an invitation of the Church Missionary Society and took a working vacation in England, shortly after the Hudson's Bay Company sold its lands to Canada, leading to the Red River Rebellion of 1869 and finally the creation of Manitoba as the country's fifth province.

   In 1876, a year after McDonald received a promotion to Archdeacon of the newly created Mackenzie diocese, he married Julia Kutuq, a Gwich'in woman, with whom he eventually had nine children.[3] According to Heeney, Julia and only 3 children survived their father.[4]

   McDonald achieved lasting recognition for his translations, having established an alphabet for the previously oral Gwich'in. With the help of Julia and other native speakers, McDonald translated the Bible, Book of Common Prayer and many hymns into Gwich'in (which he called Takudh and, later, Tukudh).[5] His translation work helped unify the various tribes speaking similar Athabaskan languages. In 1911, McDonald published a dictionary and grammar for the language under the title of A Grammar of the Tukudh Language.[6][7]

   Death and legacy Edit
   McDonald retired in 1905 to Winnipeg, where he died at his home in 1913. He is buried in the cemetery of St. John's Cathedral in Winnipeg.

   His journals are in the Yukon archives in Whitehorse, as well as among the Archives of the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert’s Land deposited with the Archives of Manitoba.

   The Canadian Calendar of Holy Persons of the Anglican Church of Canada remembers Rev. McDonald on August 30. The Episcopal Church (USA) recognizes Rev. McDonald, with Bishop John Horden, on December 15.”

9. I nominate St. Bernard of Montjoux/Menthon (NOT Clairveaux). The one connected to the dogs! Recognized in the Roman Church and feast on May 28 or June 15. He was an archdeacon in the alps who saw a need, so set up hostels and monastic communities to run them for lost and weary travellers. Patron of skiing, snowboarding, backpacking...etc

10. I nominate Saint Valentine, the patron saint of beekeepers, romance and love.
    As a city beekeeper I say thank you to all the gardeners! Thank you for your flower pots, thank you to your city gardens and that you to your dandelions.

11. I nominate St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. She led a search for the cross that Jesus was crucified on. Three crosses were found and one cured an afflicted woman when she touched it. Pieces of it were then sent to Rome and Constantinople. St. Helena is also the person who converted Constantine to Christianity, making the Roman Empire finally a safe place for Christians. Saint Helena is also the patron Saint of divorced people, converts, empresses, difficult marriages p, and archeologists. I nominate her because I am interested in both the history of the church and in archeological finds that tell us about the past.

12. How about St. George? Dragons are always in style and a reminder that we do things not through our own might but with God's help might be timely.

13. I second the nomination for Father Emil Kapaun.
    Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends
    John 15:13

14. I nominate Thomas Cranmer. As the creator of the 1st Book of Common Prayer, his impact on the Anglican Communion is immense

15. I nominate John Lewis. He lived and dreamed equality in America. He served the people in congress for may years to see his purpose through. He was a man who loved his country and God.

16. I would like to nominate St. Brendan whose St. Day is May 16. Anyone that is a patron saint of whales needs to be further researched!

    I look forward to Lent Madness every year!

17. I nominate St. John Basco. He is a fairly obscure saint in our part of the world, yet his legacy lives on in other places. I appreciate his concern and work with young people, his visions and his often brave political stances. I'd like to know more about him and figure Lent Madness is a great way to accomplish that.
    Thank you oh benevolent Supreme Executive Committee for the opportunity to participate in Nominationtide.
    Sincerely.

18. I would like to nominate St. Joseph Cottolengo, the founder of the Little House of Divine Providence. He was born in 1786 in Bra, Italy. His father was a tax collector and both his parents were devout Catholics who taugt their children about charity. He was educated at the University of Turin and ordained for the Diocese of Turin in 1811. In the midst of a civil war that devastated Italy he was called to give the last rites to a dying pregnant woman. When he couldn't find her a bed in a hospital, he learned firsthand how desperately the poor needed health care. He established a small "village"of people who would live in community with the sick and help care for them. He also established 5 contemplative monasteries for women religious and 1 for hermits. He died of typhus April 30, 1842 and was canonized March 19, 1934.

19. I nominate St. Cyril, Apostle to the Slavs (feast: 14 February, the day on which he died in Rome in 869). Cyril was a professor in Constantinople, but, at the behest of the Byzantine emperor, he left his academic life there to evangelize the Khazars, a Jewish (sic!) tribe on the north shore of the Black Sea, and then later, and far more importantly, to work among the pagan Slavs of Central Europe. He brought them the light of the Gospel by devising an alphabet for their language (called Glagolitic; the Cyrillic alphabet was developed by his disciples in the following century and named in his honor) and translating essential parts of the Holy Scriptures so that Mass and the daily offices could be celebrated in a language "understanded of the people" (check the Articles of Religion, XXIV to be specific, in the BCP for that one). Moreover he was one of the first ecumenists, striving to bring together the Eastern and Western Churches by traveling to Rome to present the relics of Pope St. Clement, which he miraculously found under the waters of the Black Sea, and to have his translations approved and blessed by the pope. And though he was a Greek and not a Slav, he had great affection for his Slavic converts and did his best to protect them from the often rapacious depredations of the Frankish-German clergy who were all too eager to subsume all of Central Europe within a German-dominated church. In the twentieth century Cyril and his equally saintly brother Methodius, who accompanied him on his missions to the Slavs, were named Patrons of Europe.

20. I would like to nominate Juliette Gordon Low. I am not sure that she is listed on any calendar or other source as a saint, but I think she certainly qualifies as one for her creation of the Girl Scouts of USA. In addition she was a member of the Episcopal church in Savannah GA. Gordon Low was buried in her Girl Scout uniform with a note in her pocket stating "You are not only the first Girl Scout, but the best Girl Scout of them all." Her tombstone read, "Now abideth faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love."

21. I would like to nominate Deaconess Susan Trevor Knapp. She is commemorated in the Calendar of Deacon Saints originally compiled originally by Deacon Ormonde Platter and continued by the Association for Episcopal Deacons.
    Susan Trevor Knapp, deaconess and missionary to Japan, died in Los Angeles about 20
    November 1941.
    Deaconess Susan Knapp (with icon by Suzanne Schleck)
    Susan Trevor Knapp was born in 1862. She graduated from the New York Training School for
    Deaconesses in 1894 and was consecrated deaconess at Grace Church, New York, in 1899 by
    Bishop Henry Potter. In 1903 she was made dean of the school commonly called St. Faith’s. She
    was a leader in both the American and worldwide deaconess movement. Because of a power
    struggle with the board of directors, Knapp was removed as dean in 1916 and offered the
    position of house mother. She declined and spent the next twenty-two years as a missionary in
    Japan, teaching English and Bible studies to Japanese and Korean college students. She returned
    to the United States in 1939 when Japan began to expel foreign missioners. She died in Los
    Angeles about 20 November 1941, shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

22. I nominate The Martyrs of Compiégne. They were a group of Carmelite Nuns martyred at the Guillotine in Paris on July 17, 1794 for disloyalty to the Robespierre regime, which had outlawed monastic life in post-revolution France. The sixteen martyrs were beatified in the Roman Catholic Church by Pope St. Pius X on May 27, 1906.

    1. They were beatified as a whole group.

23. I nominate Saint Piran, the Patron Saint of Cornwall. Corny, don't you think so?!?! Perhaps he could be matched up against whoever is the Patron Saint of one of the other 8 Celtic nations. Did you know that Cornwall is Celtic, and not English? They along with Brittany, France, and Galicia, Spain are influenced more by Celtic/Scottish traditions, then they are by the countries they're a part of. Piran is also the patron saint of tin-miners. The Irish tied him to a mill-stone, rolled it over the edge of a cliff into a stormy sea, which immediately became calm, and the saint floated safely over the water to land upon the sandy beach of Perranzabuloe in Cornwall. His first disciples are said to have been a badger, a fox, and a bear. St. Piran's Day is the 5th of March, just as Lent 2022 is getting started. He would be a perfect addition to the Lent Madness bracket. GO PIRAN!!

24. I nominate Clarence Jordan, a founder of Koinonia Farm in Georgia in 1942. Koinonia is an intentional Christian community with a commitment to racial equality, pacifism and economic sharing that drew the violent attention of the KKK and others. Habitat of Humanity grew out of Koinonia Farm. Working from the original Greek, Jordan wrote Cotton Patch Gospel, a version of the New Testament in South Georgia vernacular. He died in 1969. Clarence Jordan was a trailblazer and his voice is even more urgently needed during this time of heightened awareness of systemic racism and polarization. Clarence for the Golden Halo!

    1. Great nomination!

25. May I respectfully nominate Saint Audrey of Ely. Not only is she a paragon well suited to our emulation, but she is one of the few saints from whose name an English word derives. How cool is that!?

26. Saint Monica's ministry was in her home. To me she gives hope to women in abusive homes and those interceding for family members. She represents the many unnamed women in difficult situations who carry their loved ones to the Lord in prayer. Her outstanding miracle is her gift of her son to the church. She is an example of perseverance and devotion.

    1. Whoops! Just noted that she is ineligible! My mistake -- sorry

    2. I gave a dear friend with an out-of-control son a St. Monica prayer card -- the patroness of mothers with difficult children

27. I nominate Saint Mary of the Cross ( McKillop), first Australian Saint. Female, feisty and excommunicated by a Bishop who couldn't cope with that. Later reinstated and beatified.

28. I nominate St. Fiacre. The patron saint of gardening, taxi cabs, and hemorrhoids has to have a place on the grid.

29. I nominate Junani Luwum. A Ugandan, he became Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga-Zaire in 1974. This was during the time that Idi Amin was ruling Uganda. The Archbishop protested against the violent actions of the government. He was taken into custody and reported killed in an car crash while trying to escape. When his family finally got his bullet it had several bullet wounds. Rumor has it that Idi Amin killed him with his own hands. Feb 16 is a national holiday in Uganda honoring his life and death. He is remembered in "Holy Women, Holy Men" on Feb 17. I lived in Mbale, Uganda for one year (2016-7) teaching nursing there.

    1. I second this one!

30. I nominate St. Columba. His candidacy would give greater visibility to Celtic Christianity.