Today we celebrate the festival of St. Thomas, Apostle. Remembered, perhaps unfairly, as ‘doubting Thomas’, it was Thomas who said: “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.” When Jesus appeared again to the disciples with Thomas present, Thomas, displaying his faith, declared: “My Lord and my God!” According to tradition, Thomas traveled eastward after Pentecost and eventually reached India (where a group who call themselves the “Christians of St. Thomas” still exists). Thomas was martyred for the faith by being speared to death.

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 Daniel the Prophet and the Three Young Men. Daniel the Prophet and the three young men — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — were among those taken from Judah into captivity in Babylon. For remaining faithful to the Lord God, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were denounced to the king of Babylon and thrown into a fiery furnace, but they were miraculously saved by God’s direct intervention. Similarly, Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den for refusing to worship any god save the Lord, but was also miraculously saved by God’s intervention. Blessed with wisdom and understanding, Daniel and the three men were promoted to positions of authority in Babylon. Daniel, as a prophet, was given visions of the End Times.

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.