Last night, after I got off of work in downtown Lexington, I drove through one of the most powerful thunderstorms I've ever seen. The thunderstorms here are one thing I have really appreciated about Kentucky. In western Washington we very rarely get strong thunderstorms. As the storm progressed I was text messaging with my friend, Anna (you see her blog in my "Friend's Blogs" section), about trying to take some pictures of the storm. I mentioned that I always think of Martin Luther and St. Anne during thunderstorms.
This is of course because it was during a thunderstorm that Luther promised St. Anne that he would enter a monastery. To his father's dismay he entered an Augustinian monastery which would send him on the road to his reformation thought. As the son of a miner, he prayed to St. Anne because she is their patron saint. I admit that part of the reason that I always make the association between thunder, the reformer and the saint is because of the movie "Luther." The thunderstorm scene in that movie is a very good one. It is a good movie and I would recommend it to anyone interested in church history.
"Help Saint Anne - I want to be a monk." This is a marker stone in Stotternheim, Germany. It marks the place where Luther made his promise to Saint Anne. According to the source it also says, “Here, on 2 July 1505, Martin Luther was struck by lightning,” and, “Wendepunkt der Reformation,” - "turning point of the Reformation. "
3 comments:
Did he really get struck by lightening? Why is St. Anne a saint? I wonder if any of my pictures came out; I am going to put myself on a "develop one roll of film a week" budget, since I have so many undeveloped pics. I really love my camera, though. The way it feels when I take the picture, advance the film, etc. And storms: awesome, and scary, but in south Mississippi we love them, and should be more afraid, e.g. Hurricane Katrina and the people who stayed (like my parents). I've been on a sailboat in a thunderstorm. I prayed to live.
I had never heard that he was actually struck until I read about that marker stone in D-land. Why is St. Anne a saint??? She's Mary's mother...sounds like a pretty good reason to me =)
Ha, well, that is a good reason. I guess. But not just b/c she was her mom, but she must have been faithful to have nutured someone like Mary...
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