1499
Katherine von Bora viewed herself as a prisoner in the cloister of Marienthron. Luther’s Reformation preaching had found its way behind the convent walls and she wanted out.
It wasn’t as if she had chosen this secluded life for herself. Far from it. Her dad had brought her here when she was just a wee mite of three when her mother died. She had been there all her eighteen years.
Born on this day, January 29, 1499, Katherine was destined to set the tone for Lutheran families. But first she had to escape from her cloister. Luther had a hand in that. When he learned that Katherine and others wanted out, he conferred with a friend of his. Merchant Kopp often delivered herring to the convent. One evening in 1523, he bundled twelve nuns into his wagon and packed them in the empty fish barrels! Several of the nuns returned to their families; Luther helped find homes, husbands, or positions for the rest.
Within two years after their fishy ride, all of the nuns had been provided for except one–Katherine. Gradually, through the persuasion of friends and his father–and Katie’s own impish suggestion–Luther married her himself. She was 26, he was 42.
Luther was living in the building that had been the Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg. Katie took over its operation in 1525, the year of her marriage. She cleaned the place up and brought order to Luther’s daily life. Soon Luther wrote, “There is a lot to get used to in the first year of marriage. One wakes up in the morning and finds a pair of pigtails on the pillow which were not there before.” After a year of marriage he wrote another friend, “My Katie is in all things so obliging and pleasing to me that I would not exchange my poverty for the riches of Croesus.”
Katie managed the family finances and freed Luther for writing, teaching, and preaching. Luther called her the “morning star of Wittenberg” since she rose at 4 a.m. to care for her many responsibilities. She took care of the vegetable garden, orchard, fishpond, and barnyard animals, even butchering the stock herself.
Had she not been a hard-working woman of pure character, the reformation might have suffered. For centuries, the Reformer’s family served as a model for German families. Luther viewed marriage as a school for character: Family life helps train Christians in the virtues of fortitude, patience, charity, and humility. This is because all families have their problems, and his was no exception. But in addition to their own six children and the four orphans they raised, there were as many as 30 students, guests, or boarders staying in the monastery, all of whom came under Katie’s care. Katie also nursed Luther’s many illnesses with herbs, poultices and massages.
Katie survived her husband by six years, dying in 1552. She lived long enough to see all her children (except Magdalena, who had died at the age of fourteen) achieve positions of influence. One of the last things she said was “I will cling to Christ like a burr on a topcoat.”
1523
When ULRICH ZWINGLI became a priest in Switzerland, he took his duties seriously, believing he would have to give an account for the blood of the “sheep” that perished on his watch. Studying the Bible, he became convinced that many practices of the Catholic church were unbiblical. Before he ever heard of Luther, he argued that the Bible was a truer guide to truth than the church, that Jesus Christ was our intercessor, not Mary, and that pilgrimages gained a sinner no merit.
But even while preaching from the New Testament and memorizing large passages in the original Greek, Zwingli was having affairs with women and saw no discrepancy between this behavior and his profession of faith. After the Reformation became full-blown, he married a beautiful widow in Zurich, Switzerland. The pair had four children.
Zwingli had been invited to Zurich after proving himself an outstanding thinker, first as a chaplain to Swiss mercenary armies, and then as a priest in Einseideln. Once in Zurich, he began chipping away at traditional Catholic practices such as compulsory fasting during Lent and selling indulgences. Instead of following the assigned lessons, he preached through the book of Matthew. While doing so, he attacked the use of images, and rejected the mass as commonly practiced.
Some parishioners objected to these deviations from tradition. Zwingli defended his positions. He convinced the city elders to allow a debate and a vote on them. On this day, 29 January 1523, he presented Sixty-Seven Articles for the consideration of Zurich.
These covered the “innovations” he was making. Articles two and three contained the epitome of his teaching.
II. The sum and substance of the Gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has made known to us the will of his heavenly Father, and has with his innocence released us from death and reconciled God.
III. Hence Christ is the only way to salvation for all who ever were, are and shall be.
Although another debate had to be held in October that year, Zurich accepted Zwingli’s teachings and he became a leader in the Reformation. In that capacity he persecuted Anabaptist Christians. He sought unity with German reformers, but at the Colloquy of Marburg Martin Luther rejected Zwingli’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper and refused to shake his hand. Zwingli died in 1531 accompanying an ill-advised and mismanaged attack on neighboring Catholics, who quartered his body and mixed it with dung.
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