Luther, Katherine “Katie” von Bora (1449 -1552)
“I will cling to my Lord Christ as a burr on a coat.” (spoken 1552).
Katie Luther
In 1552, plague has broken out in Wittenberg. The university where reformer Martin Luther taught for many years until his death has removed to Torgau which is considered safer. Katherine has decided to follow the faculty and students there. Her decision proves fateful. On the way, her horses bolt and the 53-year-old woman has to leap from the wagon at the edge of a lake. She is lifted out of the water severely bruised. For three months she struggles for life. But she is worn out with a life of hardship and the outcome is predictable.
Katherine, who was placed in a nunnery as a ten-year-old child when her father remarried, heard about Luther’s teaching from inside the walls and sought a way out of the convent. She and some others contacted the reformer. Could he help them? Luther arranged for the young women to be smuggled out in empty fish barrels. He sought husbands for each, and made arrangements for all but Katie. Eventually he married her himself, proposing to her and taking her hand on the same day. They seem to have been a happy couple. Her hard work and practical domestic skills (such as budgeting, raising fish and livestock, and brewing beer) fed and clothed him and many students and orphans.
In 1546, over six years before her accident, Martin died. Katie reared their children alone with spunk and determination. Elector John Frederick set up a trust fund for the children and helped Katie purchase a small farm. The Schmalkaldic War overtook Germany, and her small plot of land was taxed unmercifully by the contending armies, leaving Katie and the children in crushing poverty. Eventually they had to flee. Their animals were taken and the farmhouse burned to the ground. Full of pluck and faith, Katie borrowed 1,000 gulden to rebuild. To help repay her loan, she took student boarders. Luther’s old supporters promised assistance; but distracted by the war, few remembered her in her distress. Then to add to her woes, the plague came.
Now, seriously injured, Katie the heroic overcomer has no fight left in her; her body has given out and barely clings to life; she is dying. Mindful of her faults and her need for a savior, she compares herself to a burr. Her last recorded words are, “I will cling to my Lord Christ as a burr on a coat.”
—Dan Graves
Dig a Little Deeper
- Alexander, J.H. “Katherine von Bora, Wife of Luther.” http://www.the-highway.com/articleNov01.html
- Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand. New York: Mentor, 1950.
- “My Lord Katie; Katharina von Bora Luther.” http://chi.lcms.org/katie/7.asp
- Taylor, Justin. “Love and Marriage, Luther Style.” http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001696.cfm
