Lazy?
Feed: Cyberbrethren Lutheran Blog Feed
Posted on: Saturday, October 02, 2010 12:58 PM
Author: Paul T. McCain
Subject: Martin Luther – Lazy Man
| I was perusing Luther's Works, American Edition, recently and stumbled into this interesting letter he wrote to a friend, in 1516, describing his various duties and activities as "Vicar" of the local monastery: Greetings. I nearly need two copyists or secretaries. All day long I do almost nothing else than write letters; therefore I am sometimes not aware of whether or not I constantly repeat myself, but you will see. I am a preacher at the monastery, I am a reader during mealtimes, I am asked daily to preach in the city church, I have to supervise the study [of novices and friars], I am a vicar (and that means I am eleven times prior), I am caretaker of the fish [pond] at Leitzkau, I represent the people of Herzberg at the court in Torgau, I lecture on Paul, and I am assembling [material for] a commentary on the Psalms. As I have already mentioned, the greater part of my time is filled with the job of letter writing. I hardly have any uninterrupted time to say the Hourly Prayers and celebrate [mass]. Besides all this there are my own struggles with the flesh, the world, and the devil. See what a lazy man I am! Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 48, p. 28 : Letters I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 26-28 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999). |
