Month: October 2015

Our God is the God of the humble, the miserable, the afflicted, the oppressed and those who are reduced to absolutely nothing.  He creates out of nothing.  He calls into being what does not exist.  He fills what is empty.  He restores what is broken.  He gives strength to the weak and comfort to the mourning.  He loves the woman with no husband and the child with no parents. He comes for the sick and for the suffering.  He enters the fray and speaks peace to the fearful and gives courage to the timid.  He does not avoid the least of these for they are His brethren. 

Martin Luther was not the first seek reform in the Church.  There were others.  Savanarola, an Italian Monk in Florence, sought a return to more fervent preaching of the Word and proclaimed that a new Cyrus would come from the North to reform the Church.  He was imprisoned and later hanged.   John Hus sought a return of the common cup to the people and delineated the moral failings of the clergy, bishops and popes.  He was burned at the stake.   John Wycliff sought the truth of God’s Word in one’s own language and emphasized the individual’s interpretation of scripture as the best moral guide.