Lent Madness Starts Today!

 Lent Madness Is Back!

 Last year you will recall that our parish engaged in a silly and fun exercise called Lent Madness, an annual competition which teaches us about some of the heroes of the Christian faith.   Lent Madness is back, and this year is full of interesting saints who could easily go all the way to win The Golden Halo.

Lent Madness is run by Foward Movement, an American Anglican publisher, and while they didn't produce the Saintly Scorecard booklet for this year's LM that they've done in past, this year's edition is available online as a free download at the Lent Madness website. 

This year's crop of blessed contenders has some potential champs.

Always a fan of a good Irish saint, I like Adomnan of Iona, the 7^th century biographer of St. Columba and who is credited with some of the first rules to try and make warfare more civilized by protecting non-combatants.  We could use him today.  The Emerald Isle is also represented by St. Brigid of Kildare, who may have started her career as a Celtic fire goddess, and by Conaire, the patron saint of stubborn women.

Biblical saints are well represented by Andew the fisherman and apostle,  Cornelius the centurion who welcomed Peter, Joseph of Arimathea who gave his tomb to Jesus and his grieving friends, Thomas the apostle, and Lazarus, who presumably forgave Jesus for recalling him from the joys of heaven to emerge from his tomb.

Anglican contenders for the Golden Halo include the “Tudor Duo”, the church musician William Byrd (actually he died a Roman Catholic but he wrote lovely music for Queen Elizabeth) and Thomas Cranmer, the father of our Book of Common Prayer.  The Two Thomases go head to head TODAY so be sure to vote!  

Other Anglicans include two US bishops of the 1800s, Jackson Kemper, who crisscrossed the US Midwest, sometimes by foot, and whose  mileage claims must have been exorbitant, and the delightfully named Henry Benjamin Whipple, an outspoken critic of the wars against the US indigenous peoples.

Some dark horses that could go far this year include a pious and learned nun, Rafqa of Lebanon, Joseph Vaz who went poor and barefoot among his people in Sri Lanka, and the indispensable Zita, patron saint of lost keys, who, of course, goes up against Rita.

So how do you play?  Simply start going to www.lentmadness.org where you will find a new matchup each day in Lent except on Sundays.     You can also follow Fr. Michael’s blog at www.madpadre.blogspot for his commentary and predictions.

As always, Lent Madness is simply an opportunity to learn, to pick your favourites, and maybe boast to your friends at your skill in picking a winner.