My Lord Katie

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. GENESIS 2:18

On Easter Eve 1523 a group of nuns escaped from the Cistercian convent of Nimbschen, near Grimma in Saxony, hidden, as the story goes, in a merchant’s wagon among empty herring barrels. They had read Luther’s writings and wanted to leave the cloister, and he had helped arrange their escape. Several were brought to Wittenberg, and Luther set about finding them husbands or homes. One of them, Katharina von Bora, a spirited woman of twenty-four from an impoverished noble family, turned down the match proposed for her and let it be known that she would marry Luther himself, or his friend Nicholas von Amsdorf. On 13 June 1525 she married Luther. He was forty-one.

Marriage restored

Luther had been writing about marriage long before he married. In The Estate of Marriage, published in 1522, he argued that marriage is a holy order established by God at creation, not a lesser state for those too weak for celibacy. The medieval church had exalted the vowed celibate life above marriage, forbidden priests to marry, and treated sexual desire with deep suspicion. Luther believed this had done great harm. God made us male and female, and blessed marriage before the fall. To despise it is to despise His work.

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. HEBREWS 13:4

He did not think marriage was a sacrament in the sense of a means of saving grace; it belonged to the order of creation, shared by Christians and unbelievers alike. But he thought it one of God’s richest gifts and one of the most demanding callings. It is a school of love, of patience, of forgiveness, and of the daily cross.

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith … forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving. 1 TIMOTHY 4:1–3

His Christmas sermon on the birth of Jesus shows how deeply he honoured ordinary human life. He insists that Mary’s childbirth was a real birth, like any other mother’s, and that she nursed her child as any mother does. He draws a principle from it:

“Grace does not interfere with nature and her work, but rather improves and promotes it.”

A little later he adds: “It is a great comfort to us that Jesus took upon himself our nature and flesh.” The body, sex, childbirth and family life are not unholy things that grace must escape. They are good creations that grace comes to heal.

The Black Cloister

The Luthers lived in the old Augustinian house in Wittenberg, given to them by the Elector. Katharina ran it with remarkable energy. She managed farms, gardens, fishponds and livestock, brewed beer, took in student boarders, nursed the sick, and fed a household that often numbered dozens. Luther called her, teasingly, my lord Katie, and he made fun of himself for being ruled by her. His letters to her are full of affection and jokes, and he once said that he would not exchange her for France and Venice together.

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. PROVERBS 31:10

They had six children. Their daughter Elizabeth died before her first birthday. Their beloved Magdalena died in 1542, aged thirteen. Luther’s grief was enormous. He knelt by her bed and prayed that God would spare her, and then, when it was clear she was dying, told God he would gladly leave her with Him. Those who were there recorded his words: that she was well provided for, and yet the parting grieved him beyond measure. The great teacher of the resurrection wept like any father.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. PSALM 127:3

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 1 THESSALONIANS 4:13

A marriage that taught the Reformation

The Luthers’ household became a model for Protestant family life for centuries. The pastor’s home — husband, wife, children, guests, students, prayer at table, the catechism taught at the fireside — became a fixture of European Christianity. It showed that holiness could be lived out in the kitchen and the nursery, and that a Christian woman could be a partner in ministry without taking a vow.

When Luther made his will in 1542, he left everything to Katharina, against the custom of the time, which gave a widow’s property into the hands of male guardians. He wrote that she had been a pious and faithful wife who had loved him dearly. It was an act of trust and honour unusual for its age.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. EPHESIANS 5:25

Honest cautions

There are shadows here too. Luther’s words about women were sometimes coarse and patronising, shaped by the assumptions of his time, and some of them are hard to read today. His teaching on the order of the household assumed a strong authority for the husband and father that can be, and has been, abused.

More seriously, in 1539 Luther and Melanchthon gave secret advice to Philip of Hesse, a leading Protestant prince, that he might take a second wife while the first still lived, rather than live in adultery, provided it was kept quiet. When the bigamy became known, it caused scandal and harmed the Reformation. Luther’s counsel was a grave error, contrary to the teaching of Christ on marriage, and born partly of political pressure. It is a warning that even the best teachers can bend the Word for the powerful.

After Luther’s death, Katharina struggled. War drove her from Wittenberg, the household fell into debt, and in 1552, fleeing plague, she was injured in an accident on the road and died at Torgau some weeks later. The woman who had held together the Reformer’s home deserves to be remembered in her own right.

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. PSALM 128:3

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. If you are married, thank God for your spouse this week in words spoken to them, as Luther did in his letters to Katie.

2. If you are single, thank God that your life is not lesser in His sight, and ask how your household can be a place of welcome.

3. Consider where you have treated the body, family life or ordinary love as less holy than religious activity. Receive them again as God’s gifts.

4. If you are grieving a child or someone dear, bring your grief to God honestly, as Luther did, and let others share it with you.

5. Ask whether you have ever bent God’s Word to please someone powerful. Repent, and resolve to speak plainly.

A PRAYER

Creator God, You made us male and female, and You have blessed marriage and family as Your good gifts.

Thank You for the homes in which we have been loved, and forgive us where we have failed those closest to us.

Let grace heal and perfect our nature, and let our households be places of prayer, welcome and joy.

Comfort all who grieve for children and loved ones, and keep us in the hope of the resurrection, through Jesus Christ, who took our flesh. Amen.