Lent Madness

In the days leading up to the start of Lent Madness 2022, we’re taking a moment to highlight the amazing Celebrity Bloggers who will bring alive our 32 saintly souls. Our talented stable of writers have their laptops at the ready and are amped up for an exciting battle for the Golden Halo.

The only thing we ask is that when you run into them in the grocery store or in church, please respect their privacy. It’s hard to believe, but they’re human beings just like the rest of us. When you meet them in public, you may notice they’re wearing masks — this is mostly to hide from the seasonal adulation.

This exercise is intended merely to humanize these paragons of the penitential. We’ve asked for three items: a photo that shows them doing something they love; a brief answer to the question, “What most excites you about Lent Madness 2022?”; and whether there’s anything they’d like to promote? (broadly defined).

To read their full bios, click here.

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Following the heady days of Nominationtide, and the submission of hundreds of saintly nominations from the Lent Madness faithful, the Supreme Executive Committee is pleased to release the highly anticipated 2022 Lent Madness bracket. Following their Spring Retreat, held in a socially-distanced, secure, undisclosed Zoom room, amid the consumption of massive amounts of single origin black coffee, Tim and Scott whittled the field to 32 saints, who will compete for the coveted Golden Halo.

This year’s bracket is broken up into four themed quadrants — Martyrs & Mystics, Theologians & Thinkers, Healers & Helpers, and the ever popular Confusion Corner, which debuted last year. While you may have many favorites among the contestants, there does not appear to be a runaway favorite in this year’s contest. Which means it’s anybody’s bracket to win! Well, you have to be in the bracket. And dead. And a saint…

But enough of this yakking. Let’s get to the 2022 bracket!

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As Lent Madness 2021 winds down, sports fans might well expect us to say, “Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this Saintly Smackdown, without the express written consent of the Supreme Executive Committee, is prohibited.” But that’s not really our jam.

Other than our insistence that people vote once and once only, we’re pretty relaxed about how Lent Madness is shared and played. We like it when people organize email campaigns for their saint. We love the fan art and many projects that pop up.

In fact, rather than use the just-before-the-end moment to chasten you with rules, we want to pause for a moment of gratitude and a word of hope.

As we mentioned on Monday Madness this week, even the Supreme Executive Committee can admit that we couldn’t do Lent Madness ourselves. It takes a whole team to make this happen.

We are grateful for our Distinguished Celebrity Bloggers Laurie Brock, Megan Castellan, and David Sibley. Our Celebrity Bloggers this year were Amber Belldene, Anna Fitch Courie, David Creech, Miguel Escobar, Neva Rae Fox, David Hansen, Emily McFarlan Miller, Carol Howard Merritt, and Miriam Willard McKenney. All of them work hard on short deadlines to bring you biographies, quotes, kitsch, and more. We can’t forget our Distinguished Bracket Czar, Adam Thomas, who keeps our official bracket updated and writes the unforgettable yet ephemeral headlines to announce each day’s competition news.

Forward Movement has sponsored Lent Madness since 2012. The whole team gets involved, including editors, designers, sales folks, marketers, and, of course, editors. Thanks to the Forward Movement team: Liz Brignac, Loren Dixon, Christina Dorn, Vicki Everett, Alyssa Finke, Samantha Franklin, Amy Golden, Carrie Graves, Tania Z. Jones, Kathy Jose, Allison Sandlin Liles, Miriam McKenney, Jason Merritt, Hugo Olaiz, Aleia Robinson, Peggy Sanchez, Jay Sidebotham, Richelle Thompson, and Chris Yaw.

We are profoundly grateful to the many fans of Lent Madness. The comments sections here — unlike most of the internet — are usually a delight. We love seeing how each year a community is formed.

This year, we enjoyed the poetry of John Cabot in the comments. We loved seeing the peg dolls that the Cathedral of St. James in South Bend, Indiana painted (and their amazing opening video). We loved Ellie Singer’s TikTok videos, including today’s video for Absalom Jones vs. Benedict the Moor. Seth Reese built an incredible website for people to post their brackets. To all of you, we say, wow, wow, wow.

Thank you to those we have named and to the whole company of Lent Madness players and fans on earth and in heaven.

We hope you have enjoyed Lent Madness, but even more, we hope that in these saints you have found inspiration. If God can work in such diverse people from all times and places, perhaps God can work in any of us. In these saints, we know that we have friends in heaven, those who have fought the good fight and who can cheer us on in our earthly journey.

If you are grateful, we invite you to make a donation to Forward Movement to support this work. Forward Movement offers inspiration and hope to people around the world with free websites such as Lent Madness, Grow Christians, and 50 Days. Each year, Forward Movement sends over 100,000 copies of free printed material to incarcerated persons, hospital patients, nursing home residents, and deployed military personnel. Forward Movement has provided free resources during the pandemic. All of this, including Lent Madness, is made possible because of generous donors. You can contact the friendly folks at Forward Movement to make your gift or you can give online right now.

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