Katie Luther was a wife, mother, farmer, brewmaster, innkeeper, and more. In all that she did, she acted boldly on her faith in Jesus Christ. There’s a little bit of Katie in all of us.
Think of bold women in our faith tradition, and Katharina von Bora Luther might immediately come to mind.
Katie, as we fondly call her, was born in the eastern German state of Saxony on January 29, 1499. When Katie was about 5 years old, her mother died; and her father sent Katie to a Benedictine convent school. When she was 10, Katie was sent to a nunnery where she was consecrated as a nun six years later, in 1515.
Life in the cloisters gave Katie something that most women outside the cloister did not have: the ability to read and write. Katie even learned some Latin.
Tomorrow: Life after the nunnery
Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent. We remember Katharina von Bora Luther, renewer of the church (1552). This message was adapted from a Women of the ELCA resource, A Bold Life of Faith: Katharina von Bora Luther, written by Linda Post Bushkofsky.