Congratulations! You’ve officially made it through the first matchup of Lent Madness 2022. And, like a slow rolling Lenten train, the battles just keep on coming. Today it’s Olaf vs. Kateri Tekakwitha as we pit an 11th century Norwegian king against a 17th century Native American saint. It’s called Lent “Madness” for a reason, after all.
In yesterday’s Opening Day matchup, amid heavy voter turnout, Stephen outlasted Wenceslaus 54% to 46% to become the first saint to make it to the Saintly 16. When last seen, Wenceslaus was overheard demanding someone, “Bring me flesh and bring me wine.” We wish him well.
The first day of Lent Madness 2022 also found the Supreme Executive Committee having to deal with some voter fraud (seriously). At 10:30 pm we removed approximately 600 votes from Wenceslaus, all from a single address. This wasn't enough to tip the scales, but is a good reminder to vote once or face being banned to the outer Lent Madness darkness where there is weeping, gnashing of teeth, and no brackets. Be passionate, vote once, don't be a jerk.
Note that tomorrow is the ONLY weekend battle of Lent Madness 2022 as Mesrop Mashtots takes on Madeline Barat. From then on, Lent Madness will only take place on the weekdays of Lent. Now go vote!
Olaf
Olaf II Haraldssön, also known as Olaf the Stout, was born in 995 of royal lineage. In his short 35 years of life, he was able to unite Norway and help spread Christianity across the land. Olaf’s early years were spent leading small bands of raiders in various conflicts against Danes. In one of the conflicts, he and his men are said to have brought down the London Bridge (thus inspiring the children’s song we all know and love). In 1013, Olaf was staying with Richard II of Normandy and was converted to Christianity. He was baptized by Richard’s brother, the Archbishop of Normandy, Robert the Dane. Shortly thereafter he experienced a call to return to Norway to unite it under Christianity.
He returned to Norway and brought nobles together under his leadership and became king of Norway in 1015, a position he held until 1028. He then proceeded to establish Christianity among the people using missionaries from England. His methods of conversion led to unrest in his subjects that would ultimately lead to his loss of power. Prior to losing his throne, he did manage to establish his Religious Code in 1024 and insisted that all laws be Christian laws. The brute enforcement of these laws, however, further weakened his power. In 1028, he was forced to abdicate the throne, and he fled to Russia.
The following year, he felt the call to reclaim his position and built an army to take back the throne. He was killed in 1030 in an ensuing battle. Tales of miracles abound about Olaf in that final battle and in the area around his burial place. These led to the exhumation of his body. When his grave was opened about a year later, it is said that the body smelled sweet, and his hair and nails had grown longer. He was quickly remembered as a saint and was one of the last saints to be canonized by both the Eastern and Western Church prior to the Great Schism.
His canonization inspired many of the Norse to convert to Christianity. To this day, he is a symbol of Norwegian independence and pride. After Mary, he is the most commonly depicted saint in medieval Norwegian art. His feast day is celebrated on July 29.
Collect for Olaf
Almighty God, you have surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses: Grant that we, encouraged by the good example of your servant Olaf, may persevere in running the race that is set before us, until at last we may with him attain to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Kateri Tekakwitha
“The narratives surrounding Saint Kateri are fascinating and, at times, contradictory,” writes Yakama scholar Michelle M. Jacob of Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. That might be an understatement.
Kateri Tekakwitha’s story is best known from the narratives of two Jesuit priests who knew her, Pierre Cholenec and Claude Chauchetiere. According to the priests, Tekakwitha was born around 1656 to a Mohawk father and Algonquin mother in what is now Auriesville, New York. Four years later, she was orphaned by the smallpox epidemic.
Tekakwitha survived the disease, but it left her face disfigured and her eyes sensitive to light. She hid her face and shielded her eyes by veiling her head with a blanket. She was baptized when she was about 19 years old after Jesuit priests came to her village.
At her baptism, she took the name Catherine—or its Mohawk approximation, Kateri—from Saint Catherine of Siena. In the priests’ telling, her community didn’t take kindly to Kateri Tekakwitha’s newfound faith, and she soon left for a Jesuit mission south of Montreal called Kahnawake. At the mission, Kateri Tekakwitha famously asked the question, “Who will teach me what is most agreeable to God so that I may do it?” She also engaged in severe and disturbing penances, which likely accelerated her death at age 24 in 1680.
Native Christians have, in recent years, offered varying stories about Kateri. Mohawk historian and author Darren Bonaparte points out that the priests ignored that Kateri Tekakwitha was “a part of her culture, and a valued one at that.” She has the distinction of being the first weaver of wampum belts mentioned by name in recorded history. Jacob, the Yakama scholar, explores ways Native Christians continue to claim and be inspired by Kateri Tekakwitha.
For many, the saint “transforms Catholicism and provides Indigenous peoples and their allies with meaningful ways to center Indigenous culture within their spiritual practice”—a form of decolonization.
Kateri Tekakwitha was canonized in 2012. She is considered patron saint of the environment and of people in exile, and her feast day is celebrated on July 14.
Collect for Kateri Tekakwitha
Almighty and everliving God, who opened the heart of Kateri Tekakwitha to receive the Good News of Jesus Christ and to devote her life to your service: Grant us the same zeal of devotion to persevere in faith through the trials and tribulations of our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
198 comments on “Olaf vs. Kateri Tekakwitha”
Olaf needs to win because there is the connection between the town/school that bears his name, meaning that Betty White--at least by her Golden Girls character--gets sainted in the process. Let's do it for Betty!
I'm hoping we see both Kateri and Stephen advance...because in my city (Santa Clarita, CA) we have churches named for both saints. St. Stephen's is the Episcopal church, St. Kateri Tekakwitha is one of the Catholic churches.
perfect
auresville ny is only 2 hours away
love Tekakwitha
liturgical rumor Montreal & ny bishop agreed to cut her in 1/2
part that was in Montreal was incinerated in a fire
Not wanting to endorse Olaf's methods of spreading the Good News, I voted for Kateri. I don't endorse her extreme penitential practices either, but, as an earlier commenter(who had succeeded in overcoming a compulsion to self cut) remarked, she may have been driven to these practices by trauma and hurt. I have been rather amazed by the large number of people who sniff that neither candidate meets their criteria for sainthood. And I thought I was such a judgmental old curmudgeon! I do have one curmudgeonly comment: I hate the new format. It may look trendy, but I think the old one was far better.
I agree, the new format is less "user friendly"...I have to remember to log into the website and then scroll through a gazillion comments to get to read the earlier ones..
Please SEC, bring back the former format!!
Halfway through reading Olaf's bio I knew I'd be voting for his opponent, whoever it was. (I've never been a big fan of forced conversions).
So then was very happy to see he'd been put up against the inspiring figure of Kateri Tekakwitha. This contest was a no-brainer for me.
I dpreach at congregations called Viking and St. Olaf (three guesses who colonized this place?), and yet Kateri Tekakwitha gets my vote. Uff da.
I like to think that "uff da" is something like "up yours," a shortened version of "uff da rumpa." My etymologies can often leave something to be desired, however.
I voted for Olaf. That's what I get for not doing my research first!
Same here
I'm having computer troubles today
Olaf is too violent for me, but I like miracles, so I read on. I could only find one healing of a blind man. Liked the collect for Kateri. She seemed very self-destructive and in need of a good therapist. She reminded me of cult members misled by their leaders, then left on their own. I found her self-condemning and sad.
"like a slow rolling Lenten train, the battles just keep on coming": today is Mixed Metaphor Day. So like a boat plowing through a desert, I'm going to vote for Kateri. I appreciate the opportunity to learn about indigenous people's encounters with Christianity, and "Olaf the Stout" isn't inspiring other than that after raiding the Danes as a pirate for years, he was baptized by a Dane, which is either poetic justice or sweet revenge. I'm troubled by these "disturbing ascetic practices" of Kateri's, but Clare of Assisi also practiced extreme fasting (anorexia?), which brought her to an early death, so there is a much larger story about bodily mortification and women's spirituality that we need to know about, but that is a project that goes well beyond just Kateri. (Also, one of my joys in years past has been reading through all the comments, and while I appreciate the purple background this year, as appropriate for Lent and a laudable effort on the part of the SEC to "change things up," I lament the difficulty of being able to read the comments easily.)
In addition to the other facts mentioned, it seems timely to honor someone whose entire family died in a pandemic. Go Kateri!
In those days you had to be really tough just to survive everyday life and I am sure he was by far not the toughest or most intimidating. I believe that bringing Christianity to an entire pegan nation was nothing short of a miracle. For a King to be killed in battle was unusual, I believe he did pay huge price for his incredible devotion to the faith.
Coming to today's competition later than usual, it is, IMO humble or not, not an improvement to the website that to read the entire group of comments, I have to click repeatedly on "older" and "newer" comments at the bottom of whatever your new algorithm chooses to display (different on my phone, iPad & laptop). Please give us back the chronological (oldest on top) list of comments each day. Thank you.
PS Kateri for me.
PPS first posted my whine in yesterday's comments by accident, so repeating here today.
Being over 50 percent Norwegian I had to vote for Olaf!
Had to vote for St. Kateri. What a courageous, determined young woman.
I might also have voted for her because I am Choctaw, Native American. 🙂
In the church that I grew up in, we were taught that saints were basically idols, so it is a bit shocking to see so many people disagreeing with both of these saints
I'm half Norwegian, but it sounds like Olaf was a proponent of "brutal" Christianity. What would Jesus think about that? So it's Kateri for me.
Hmmm, spreading Christianity by brute force or engaging in severe and disturbing penances? Not a happy choice today but, of course, it had to be St Kateri for her assistance in decolonising Spirit.
Abstaining from voting today.
Any friend of Catherine of Siena has to be a friend of mine. But I must agree with Bee Durban that “spreading Christianity by brute force or engaging in severe and disturbing penances” is not an attractive choice.”
Davis! il miglior fabbro! as in "FAB bro!"
I don’t understand not voting. Is that supposed to make some kind of point? Just suck it up and pick one! Geez!
"Just suck it up." Said all the saints at some point in their lives.
I did not vote 600 times for Wenceslaus but I wanted to.
Yay for hearts to like comments now! Thanks, y'all! Meant to ask earlier but can I make a request, too? In previous years there was a way to get (email) notifications if folks commented on our comments. But I'm guessing that would take a lot more work for the website/coding/etc... I enjoy much of the conversational nature of the comments but between my time, fatigue and brain fog it's hard to be able to go back through the few hundred comments to check on further replies...
What I want to know is - how did Olaf knock down London Bridge attacking the Danes? Was he lost? Vikings are bad news in Britain and as an exiled Brit, my vote is for Kateri - patron saint of exiles.
Also while appreciating the SECs effort to update Lent Madness, I also prefer the old format.
I think the Danes might have been running that part of England at the time.
Between the Romans and William the Conquerer there were different governments in different parts of England at different times, and not all were ran by locals.
Quite right! Olaf was a thug who assisted in knocking down the bridge in order to pillage England. Ye gads, we can't have him wearing a Golden Halo!
Olaf seems to be lagging behind oh my
Oooh. Patron saint of the environment AND "severe and disturbing penances", sign me up!
For what it’s worth to anyone, Allan Greer has a excellent historical book on Kateri Tekakwirha- her world was wet complicated and involved a lot of brutality between the French and the Mohawks and her life was shaped by that violence. Her mother had been a Christian before being captured and forcibly re-integrated into Mohawk society, and Kateri choosing Christianity on her own meant she was exiled from her people by her people. She lived in a world full of violence and exploitative economic practices, from both the French but also from the Mohawks and Iroquois who had their own slave trade and their own empires before and during French colonization (not that it detracts from the brutality of French colonialism) and she chose a different path by choosing to follow Christ. Her self mortification is disturbing, but it was a more common religious practice at the time and let’s not pretend like self harm isn’t still around. I’ve seen comments, not unfairly, asking what she did to deserve to be a saint- and the answer is she chose to love God and others in a difficult time. What more can we ask of a Saint?
https://www.supersummary.com/mohawk-saint-catherine-tekakwitha-and-the-jesuits/summary/
The lives of these two saints did vary,
Though neither on Earth did long tarry.
Stout Olaf, alive,
Until just thirty-five,
But eleven years more than Kateri.
Happened to just watch the story of the attack on London Bridge tonight, so coincidental matchup. The TV version isn’t painting the Christian Vikings in a very kind light. I’m going with Kateri.
That banner is still popping down randomly despite my seeing replies in the comments yesterday that the issue was being fixed.
I miss the old layout, though the hearts on the comments are nice.
Keep the banner at the top and out of sight once one has scrolled down and put all the comments on one page, please!
Hi Miss Jan! Agree!