Martin Luther on Fewer Saints’ Days

Note: Throughout the month of October, leading up to the 500th anniversary of the legendary date of the outbreak of the Reformation on October 31, 1517, Pray Tell is publishing writings of Martin Luther reflecting his beliefs at various points in his life.

All festivals should be abolished, and the Lord’s Day alone retained. If it were desired, however, to retain the festivals of Our Lady and of the major saints, they should be transferred to the Lord’s Day, or observed only by a morning Mass, after which all the rest of the day should be a working day. Here is the reason: since the feast days are abused by drinking, gambling, loafing, and all manner of sin, we anger God more on holy days than we do on other days. Things are so topsy-turvy that holy days are not holy, but working days are. Nor is any service rendered to God and his saints by so many saints’ days.

(To the Christian Nobility of the German Nations, 1520. Featured image: excerpt from “Lesser Festivals and Commemorations, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 2006)
Editor

Katharine E. Harmon, Ph.D., edits the blog, Pray Tell: Worship, Wit & Wisdom.

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4 responses to “Martin Luther on Fewer Saints’ Days”

  1. Jim Pauwels

    If drinking and loafing are to be eschewed, pretty much every day off work would go by the wayside …

    Reply
  2. Fritz Bauerschmidt

    I’m sure that the idea of squeezing a bit more blood from the peasant turnips played well with the Christian nobility to whom Luther was writing. We wouldn’t want the serfs to have too many days off for drinking, gambling and loafing.

    Maybe Max Weber was right about the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.

    Reply
    1. Karl Liam Saur

      Yes to your first point.

      As to your second, the Catholic Flemings, Savoyards, Milanese, Tuscan and Venetians were no slouch in the capitalism department. They did, perhaps, have more éclat.

      Reply
  3. Francesco Poggesi

    This passage is weird because the throw-away line at the end (“Nor is any service rendered to God and his saints by so many saints’ days.”) negates most of the force of the previous lines. In essence the argument is:

    ‘Feasts should be suppressed because people don’t respect them! Also, I think they’re pretty much useless.’

    Reply

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