Katherine von Bora*
1499-1552
“Katherine von Bora Luther left her indelible mark on history. She represented the new spirit of the Reformation, and played no small role in transferring the ideal of Christian service from the cloister to the home.”
Meet Katherine von Bora. She was born January 29, 1499, in Lippendorf, Germany, and she entered the convent at age nine. It seemed she would spend her life there and her identity would be that of a nun. The Reformation changed not only her eternal destiny but also changed the course of her life. She became a true follower of Jesus and married the courageous reformer, Martin Luther. He was forty-two, and she was twenty-five. Would the marriage last? “History records that the marriage not only succeeded, but set a high standard for Christian family life for centuries to come.”
“History records that the marriage not only succeeded, but set a high standard for Christian family life for centuries to come.”
Katherine cared for her prestigious husband and the bustling household, while also ministering to the needs of people all over Wittenberg, where they lived. She listened to their problems, gave them care and medicine in their sicknesses, counseled them in their sorrows, and advised them in their business affairs. The town recognized that the Luther household was an exemplary Christian home, and much of that success was due to Katherine.
“Martin Luther was generally cheerful and had faith in his God, yet occasionally he became moody. At such times, Katherine sought to comfort and encourage him. Once, when nothing seemed to raise Luther’s spirits, he decided to leave home for a few days to see if a change would help him, but he returned grieved in spirit.
On entering the house, he found his wife seated in the middle of the room, dressed in black, with a black cloth thrown over her head, and looking quite sad. A white handkerchief she held in her hand was damp, as if moistened with tears.
When Luther urged his wife to tell him what was the matter, she replied, ‘Only think, my dear doctor, the Lord in Heaven is dead, and this is the cause of my grief.’
“Only think, my dear doctor, the Lord in Heaven is dead, and this is the cause of my grief.”
He laughed and said, ‘It is true, dear Kate; I am acting as if there was no God in Heaven.’” Luther’s melancholy left him.
None of her [Katherine’s] many sorrows was greater than the loss of her husband in 1546, twenty-one years after their marriage. He had gone to his native town of Eisleben in Saxony to settle disputes between the quarreling counts of Mansfield. Having suffered from ill health for ten years, he was not equal to the severe winter he had to endure there.
Katherine’s deep affection for her husband is expressed in this letter which she wrote to her sister soon after his death:
“Who would not be sorrowful and mourn for so noble a man as my dear lord, who served not only a single land, but the whole world? If I had a principality and an empire, it would never have cost me so much pain to lose them as I have now that our dear Lord God has taken from me, and not from me only, but from the whole world, this dear and precious man.”
“If I had a principality and an empire, it would never have cost me so much pain to lose them as I have now that our dear Lord God has taken from me, and not from me only, but from the whole world, this dear and precious man.”
”
For new strength, Katherine Luther turned to Psalm 31: “In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; . . . Deliver me in thy righteousness . . . Be thou my strong rock . . .” (vv. 1-2, KJV).
In 1552, the bubonic plague spread over Wittenberg, and the university was moved to Torgau. Katherine decided to seek refuge in this town to which she had journeyed to safety as a nun almost thirty years earlier. En route, the horses pulling the carriage in which she and her four children were riding became frightened. Anxious for her children’s safety, she jumped out of the fast-moving vehicle and tried to stop the horses, but she fell into a ditch of water.
“Anxious for her children’s safety, she jumped out of the fast-moving vehicle and tried to stop the horses, but she fell into a ditch of water. ”
This experience was too much for her gallant spirit. She soon developed bronchial trouble and for several months lay ill, comforting and sustaining herself by praying. She died on December 20, 1552, and joined her husband in their eternal heavenly home.
Katherine von Bora Luther left her indelible mark on history. “She represented the new spirit of the Reformation, and played no small role in transferring the ideal of Christian service from the cloister to the home.”
Note: This glimpse into Katherine’s life is gleaned from Great Women of the Christian Faith by Edith Deen.
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"He has also set eternity in the human heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11b).
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