Lent Madness

[Fish and Bread]

Link:

Lent Madness

If you're familiar with the NCAA basketball tournament, or really any single-elimination sports playoff system, you'll probably understand how this works.

Basically, the twist is that instead of sports teams, Saints are placed in these brackets. Every day, two Saints face off. The winners advance to subsequent rounds until one wins the coveted Golden Halo.

Each day, you go to the site and vote in a web poll to help decide which Saint advances.

The first matchup is St. Stephen vs. St. Alban. I'm going with St. Stephen:

http://www.lentmadness.org/2017/03/stephen-vs-alban/

The poll follows the biographies.

 

[tadoflamb]

The first matchup is St. Stephen vs. St. Alban.

Sounds like a 2 v. 15 seed to me.

I can see an upset as possible, but I'm still going to have to go with the protomartyr.

 

[tadoflamb]

Henry Beard Delany vs. Aelred of Rievaulx

I can't believe this, the Episcopalian is beating the Catholic!

 

[Fish and Bread]

Henry Beard Delany vs. Aelred of Rievaulx

I can't believe this, the Episcopalian is beating the Catholic!

Since I'm not intricately familiar with either Saint, it's hard to say for sure whether the biographies on the site are evenly reflective of the whole span of the two Saints' lives and careers, but Father Henry's biography seemed a lot more robust on the site itself than Brother Aelred's biography. They really went into a lot of detail about Father Henry's accomplishments and work for the faith, whereas Brother Aelred's stuff sounded a little more vague and less interesting- the chief thing I remember from what they wrote about Saint Aelred is that some people, in retrospect, think that he may have been gay (And even as someone sympathetic towards gay rights, that someone may have been gay is not a persuasive argument to get my all important Lent Madness vote ).

I think the site is definitely achieving it's purpose. I'm learning some things. Heck, I'm actually now thinking I should look up more about Saint Aelred to see if they made him seem less interesting than he really was. And I'm sure the organizers of this thing probably would see that as a positive outcome- it's done to promote the Saints and get people engaged with the lives of these people, so if it does that, it succeeds no matter who wins.

In any event, it looks like Father Henry, if he wins, is going to have a tough second round match up against either Saint Anselm or Florence Nightingale, if I'm reading my bracket correctly. Saint Anselm's Marian writings are legendary and he is considered the father of scholasticism, whereas Florence Nightingale has extremely high name recognition. So, I think it's a safe bet that whomever wins today's voting is one and done. It'd be a big upset if today's winner gets past round two and into the Sweet (Saintly?) Sixteen. A very tough second round opponent is waiting.

Here's the bracket, BTW, if anyone hasn't seen it yet:

http://www.lentmadness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/LM2017Bracket02.jpg

I'm not sure what order we're voting the first round entries in. I guess we'll be surprised every day.