Katie Luther Presentation: What I'm doing this weekend

This weekend, I am traveling to Grand Rapids, Michigan for two presentations on Katie Luther, the wife of Martin Luther of the Protestant Reformation. I find Katie Luther, more technically called Katharina Von Bora, to be an immensely interesting woman of faith. She was placed in a convent at age 6, lived there and took her vows, and then began hearing of the reforms of Martin Luther. At age 21, she and some other nuns decided to escape their vows and their cloistered lives.

The escape story is dramatic. On Easter Eve, 1523, Katie and several other nuns escaped in empty herring barrels with the assistance of Leonard Koppe, a local merchant. They shimmied down into the barrels, tucked away out of sight, as Koppe's wagon rolled away in the middle of the night, away from the convent, to freedom.

After two years, Luther finally proposed to Katie, and they married. He was 42, she was 26. She had 6 children in the span of 8 years.

What I find incredible about her was her energy, her devotion to the people around her, and her ardent faith. She and Luther were given an abandoned monastery, the Black Cloister, as their home. She whipped this place into shape and prepared not only a peaceful and hospitable home for her family but also for the many theological students, royalty, and the downtrodden in Wittenberg.

There is so much I could say about Katie, but this just gives a taste of what I'll be presenting this weekend on Friday at Our Savior Lutheran School, and on Saturday at an LWML zone rally in Grand Rapids.