Marburg

Today we traveled to Marburg and got a 3 1/2 hour tour of the city, including the Church of St. Elizabeth, the saint that is best known for her work in helping the poor and sick. She was married at the age of 14, and established a hospital in Marburg for the sick and the poor, and she died at the age of 24. She was canonized and made a saint in 1235. A church was erected in her honor, and we visited that church today. Inside includes a painting of her showing her wearing a blue dress, often the color Mary, the mother of Jesus is wearing. This was to show that Elizabeth was so good that she was as close as anyone could get to St. Mary. We also saw the gravesite for St. Elizabeth, and learned that her "relics", or bones, were believed to contain the grace of God because Elizabeth recieved so much of God's grace, so they put the relics in a gold shrine within the church so people could touch the shrine and recieve grace from the relics. When Luther began writing his beliefs against the church and churches started changing from Catholic to Protestant, the need for relics was no longer necessary because Luther preached that grace was a gift from God and our works were not necessary to recieve this grace. It was fun learning about St. Elizabeth because I really don"t know much about many saints, but St. Elizabeth is definately one of my favorites. Her work reminds me of Martin Luther's establishment of the Common Chest. Both believed in helping those who need help, a concept that continues today in many churches and non-profit organizations. I'm not sure if this was their mindset in establishing these organizations, but I always remember the verse where Jesus says in Matthew 25:40, "The King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." I love this verse because it reminds us that we are all humans, and we all deserve to be treated in a kind manner, especially when we need help. St. Elizabeth and Luther understood this concept quite clearly.

We also got to see Philp of Hesse's castle today, which was the place where the Marburg Colloquy took place. The Marburg Colloquy was Philip's attempt to bring all the Reformers together so they could agree on specific arguments, including baptism, confession, forgiveness of sins...etc. There were 15 arguments, they agreed on all but 1: Eucharist. They could not agree on their beliefs on Eucharist and the presence of Christ in the bread and the wine. However, the fact that they were able to agree on the other 14 was quite remarkable!! The Castle was impressive (though definately not as cool as the Wartburg) and it was fun to see the sites where both Elizabeth and Luther are honored as important and heroic figures of religious history.

Tomorrow we travel to Mainz, where we will see the Gutenburg Museum, with the orignal Gutenburg Bible (which I will explain more about tomorrow). After Mainz, we continue to Darmstadt, where we will stay for 2 nights. Until then..
+Grace and Peace+