After a long off season, it has finally arrived! No, not pumpkin spice season...
Before we can pit saint against saint in the madness, we need you, yes, you in the pew, the pulpit, or just procrastinating at your desk, to help us decide who will enter the Lenten bracket! For one glorious week, you get to nominate a saint you believe is fit for a chance to win the coveted Golden Halo. Will it be a desert dwelling hermit? A hymn writing bishop? A martyred monastic with a flair for hospitality and a killer bread recipe? Only you can decide!
Fr. Michael and Fr. Christian are keeping the tradition fun, holy, and wholly Lent Madness.. Through laughter, bracketology, and some surprisingly intense saintly showdowns, we continue growing in the knowledge and witness of the saints, and through them, in the love of Christ!
To ensure your SUCCESSFUL nomination, please consult the sacred Nominationtide Rules & Regulations, which are lovingly inscribed on a weathered scroll, sealed with a kiss, and currently housed in the archives of the Lent Madness studio. Here are the cliff notes…
As you discern which saint 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 2026, those saints who made it to the Round of the Elate Eight in 2025 and 2024, and those from the 2023 Faithful Four.
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).
Happy Nominationtide!
Time to nominate your favorite saint! But first, look over this list.
Entire 2026 Bracket (Ineligible for 2027)
2025 Elate Eight
2024 Elate Eight
2023 Faithful Four
Eligible again: 2022 Faithful Four: Teresa of Avila, Madeleine Barart, Thomas of Villanova, Jose Hernandez
5 comments on “Happy Nominationtide!!!!”
Mother Theresa. She embodies Christ-like behavior while also admitting to be a sinner.
How have we not had Saint Moses the Black as a competitor?
I love a good redemption story, and this guy has it all. He was so naughty, that even his own master didn’t want him anymore. He was a leader of a gang— he robbed people he murdered, he beat people up.
But then thanks to some monks, Moses changed his ways, and later converted a group of robbers to be Christians as well. He was devoted to his faith, very strongly, but never believed he was worthy enough. At the end of his life, he was murdered because he wouldn’t fight back against those who were attacking him and his group. They all became martyrs, and he is known as the patron of nonviolence.
What a shift from his early life!
I nominate Matthew Talbot, the worker saint of Dublin, Ireland, for Lent Madness 2027. He is commemorated on June 16th (or June 18th) in the Roman Catholic Church, and has been declared “Venerable”, an early step towards canonization.
In Dublin, near where the Memorial Bridge crosses the River Liffey, there is a statue of a plain-looking man in work clothes, head bent forward as he clasps the plank he’s carrying. On the one hand, the statue shows who Matt Talbot was and what he did for a living. He worked in a lumber yard most of his life, moving boards and loading wagons. I’ve always wondered, though, if the sculptor was using this imagery to tell us something more. The statue also can be seen as Matt Talbot embracing the foot of the cross.
Born in 1856 in the Dublin slums, by the time Matt was fourteen he was already an alcoholic like his father and some of his brothers. By his late twenties he was considered hopeless, selling his clothes and stealing to get money for drink after he’d spent his pay at the pub. One day, when he was standing in he street hoping to cadge a drink off a passing friend, he had an experience of deep conversion. He turned around, went home, and told his mother he was “taking the pledge” – giving up drinking. He had broken so many pledges before that his mother laughed at him. But this time was different. From that day forward he never drank again.
Through the following years, Matt slowly changed into a man of deep faith and prayer. Nearly illiterate, he taught himself to read so he could study the Bible, theology, and the lives of the saints. He lived simply and gave any money he earned beyond his own needs to the poor. He gained a reputation as a hard worker who never turned away anyone who asked for his help. Far from a pious killjoy, he was known for his cheerfulness and dry wit, and was especially loved by the children who knew him. I nominate Matt Talbot because his story reminds us that no one – absolutely no one – is beyond God’s grace and love, and that even the most ordinary people can lead lives of holiness and do great work for God.
Saint Rita of Cascia
Patroness of impossible causes
Billy Bray, a self-described Son of the King [Jesus]. His story, from brawling, drunkenness, and blasphemous lifestyle to devout preacher, chapel builder, and lover of God, is really the stuff of legend in Cornwall.
Read his story in "The King's Son Or, A Memoir of "Billy" Bray"
by F.W. Bourne
Read his conversion story at this link: https://onemethodist.org/03-10.htm