Confident.Faith

Today we commemorate Katharina Luther, née von Bora. Born in 1499, Katharina von Bora was placed into a convent when she was still a child and became a nun in 1515. In April of 1523, Katharina, along with eight other nuns, was rescued from the convent and brought to Wittenberg. In Wittenberg, Martin Luther helped the rescued nuns return to their families or start families of their own. Although initially hesitant to marry — as he feared assassination or execution by Rome — Luther believed that he must place his faith in God and practice what he preached. Katharina and Luther were married on 13 June 1525. God blessed the Luthers’ marriage with six children, and Katharina skillfully managed the Luther household. Although she suffered financial difficulties after Luther’s death in 1546, Katharina remained steadfast in her faith and her care for her children and others. Amongst her last recorded words, Katharina, on her deathbed, said that she would ‘stick to Christ as a burr to cloth.’

Today we commemorate Adam and Eve. Father and mother to us all, Adam and Eve were the first two human beings created by God’s own hands. Adam, formed from the dust, was created first and Eve, formed from one of Adam’s ribs to be his companion, was created second. Failing to obey God and listening to the Serpent’s temptation, Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which God had forbidden, and Adam, forsaking his role as head, joined her in rebellion. For their disobedience, they were driven from the Garden; by their disobedience, death entered the world. Nevertheless, in the midst of the tragedy of the Fall, God promised that the woman’s Seed — Christ, the Savior — would crush the Serpent’s head. In His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, Christ defeated sin, death, and the devil — fulfilling the promise of Genesis 3:15. As Luther commented: ‘God arranged to remove through Christ whatever the devil brought in through Adam.’

Today we commemorate Lucia, Martyr. Born into a wealthy family, Lucia gave away her dowry to the poor. When this came to the attention of the Roman governor, he ordered Lucia to burn a sacrifice to the emperor. Upon her refusal, the governor commanded that she be condemned to a brothel; Lucia was martyred by the soldiers who came to execute the governor’s sentence. As the name “Lucia” means light, many European nations have long held festivals in her memory involving lanterns or lights; such festivals have been particularly popular in the Scandinavian countries, where this time of year is quite short on daylight.