From the desk of the pastor for Nov. 16, 2025

The Lord be with you. From humble origins to a central figure of history, Martin Luther did not intend to start the Evangelical Revolution. Certainly correct in many of his critiques, Martin would not admit that he was wrong in some.

Baptized on St. Martin of Tour’s feast day, Martin grew up in a devout Catholic household in the Electorate of Saxony, within the Holy Roman Empire. His father lifted the family from being laborers to small business owners (burghers) so that he could afford to send Martin to the University of Erfurt. Martin appeared to be on track to become a successful lawyer with a strong grasp of logic and rhetoric.

Martin’s life profoundly changed on July 2, 1505 when he was caught in a severe thunderstorm. After lightning killed one of his companions, Martin made a vow to St. Anne that if spared he would become a monk. Twelve days later Martin fulfilled the vow and entered the local Augustinian monastery. While earning a degree in biblical studies, Martin began to have extreme doubts about his own salvation. Martin was likely scrupulous confessing up to six hours a day! When he was ordained a priest, he almost fainted walking to the altar for his first Mass he was so concerned about offending God.

Martin had an intellectual upheaval around 1517 when he proposed that salvation was achieved through faith in Jesus alone (a latter article will go over this error in detail). Freed from his anxieties Luther began preaching on how it was God’s free gift of grace alone - sola gratia - that was important. Martin’s intellectual criticism of merit became public when Friar Johann Tetzel began selling indulgences in a nearby town. Although he probably did not physically attach his Ninety Five Theses to the cathedral door, Martin did ask the Archbishop of Mainz, and the greater church community, to review the use of indulgences in light of his concept of salvation by faith alone.

Eventually, Pope Leo X condemned 41 of Luther’s Theses and required him to recant or be excommunicated; Martin publicly defied the pope by burning the pope’s order. This act moved Martin outside of the Church’s justice and into the domain of the Empire’s Peace. Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire summoned Martin to the Diet of Worms in 1521 granting Luther safe passage. Here Martin refused to recant famously saying, “Here I stand; I can do no other.” After Martin was allowed to return home, he was condemned to death by the Diet. The Elector of Saxony then had Martin taken to safety by pretending to kidnap him!

In our next article we will go over how the German princes of the Holy Roman Empire took Martin’s side. Within a decade the Church in Germany was torn in two. Worse would follow. May God grant us all the grace to trust in His Divine Mercy always.

In His Sacred Heart,
Fr. John