KATHARINA VON BORA

CHURCH REFORMER, 1552

Katharina von Bora was the daughter to a family of Saxon petty nobility. Her father sent the five-year-old Katharina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna in 1504 for education. After several years of religious life, Katharina became interested in the growing reform movement and grew dissatisfied with her life in the monastery. Conspiring with several other nuns to flee in secrecy, she contacted Luther and begged for his assistance. On Easter Eve, 4 April 1523, Luther sent Leonhard Köppe, a city councilman of Torgau and merchant who regularly delivered herring to the monastery. The nuns successfully escaped by hiding in Köppe's covered wagon among the fish barrels, and fled to Wittenberg.

Martin Luther, as well as many of his friends, were at first unsure of whether he should even be married. However, he eventually came to the conclusion that "his marriage would please his father, rile the pope, cause the angels to laugh, and the devils to weep." Martin Luther married Katharina on June 13, 1525.

Meditation-Rebecca Northington

Today is the anniversary of the death of Katharina Luther, the wife of Martin Luther. Not only did Katharina run the Wittenberg Monastery alongside her husband, she bore 6 children. In many ways she was a critical piece of the reform movement and yet many of us know little to nothing of her story.

“The marriage of Katharina von Bora to Martin Luther was extremely important to the development of the Protestant Church, specifically in regards to its stance on marriage and the roles each spouse should concern themselves with. The way Luther described Katie’s actions and the names he gives her like “My Lord Katie” shows us that he really did feel strongly that she exhibited a great amount of control over her own life and decisions. It could even reasonably be argued that she maintained some influence in the actions of Martin Luther himself.”

The lectionary does a wonderful job of making Katharina sound like a true partner to Martin Luther in all ways - and also the perfect wife. Yet clearly her road to that role included a bit of necessary resistance and healthy youthful protest. She was a woman who knew what she did not want and was motivated enough to lie with fish barrels to achieve her liberty. How many in history and still today might seek liberty at any cost, and do they always find their happy outcome? At the end of the story, after Luther died, Katharina faced poverty, ultimately dying tragically at the age of 53 after fleeing both plague and famine.

On first reading it appears Katharina is included in the lectionary because of her steadfast ways. As Paul repeatedly advises, she exhibits perfect womanly qualities, demonstrating diligence, decorum, and steadfastness. All characteristics Paul hoped his burgeoning Christian communities would also display in order to attract good attention, and discourage bad publicity. In many ways Martin Luther needed to tow that same line. He was writing and theologizing so prolifically, his home life needed to be the model of grace.

But I think “Katie” as she was known, was included because of her spirit. She exhibits an inner strength and drive that represents a greater understanding of what it means to follow Christ. It is not always about following the rules, and being modest, and upright etc. It is about understanding that God’s grace is offered to all of us. We cannot earn it and we cannot manipulate it. It seems that from her adolescence at the Benedictine Cloister she knew something was not right about the way God’s grace was being, or not being, shared. She fled to find a people and a place who would understand that it wasn’t about priests, or nuns, negotiating her relationship with God. Or that seeking God’s forgiveness required making the coffers of the Church richer.

I believe Katharina is lifted up today to remind all of us to be vigilant to malfeasance in our own lives. We cannot be passive and let the winds or the tides push us into communities or belief systems that we know deep down inside us are not right. We cannot accept false witness. Katharina pursued love and faith. She was the exemplar of hard work and commitment; but not blindly. Only with eyes wide open, listening for God’s call to her.

Paul has been used over the centuries to keep people in their place, where society was more comfortable to have them. I do not believe that was Paul’s intention. Paul, like Katharina, was brave and forceful in his hope to have love overcome fear and hatred. He needed these new Churches to keep their waters calm while that message could take root, so he asked the people to remain dutiful in their household roles. But most importantly, like Katie, Paul wanted us to resist those forces that sought to use Religious Institutions, the Government or their power at large to incite fear and harm. Those were just the forces that Katie and Paul believed Christianity came to overturn.

Prayer

Almighty God, who called your servant Katharina von Bora from a cloister to work for the reform of your church: Grant that, for the sake of your glory and the welfare of your church, we may go wherever you should call, and serve however you should will; through Jesus Christ, our only mediator and advocate. Amen.

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