Friday, November 28, 2025

It is the 27th of November 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A very happy Thanksgiving to those listening today in the United States- the last day of the Pre-Christmas season for us pagans that skip Advent (or roll Advent into the general Christmas season as we do here). I was assured there would be black olives and deviled eggs on the table later today…

Over the length of this show, we have told many stories of the sometimes overlooked women of the Reformation. From Katy von Bora, Argula von Grumbach, and Katharina Schutz, we have told some of the stories of the all-important noblewomen and wives of the Reformation. Their ministries were tied up with the work of their husbands- but what about the single women?

With the Reformation and the closing of the monasteries, men could “change careers,” but what about the women for whom there were no longer avenues for official ministry?

Enter the so-called “arch-deaconess” of Constance: Margaret Blaurer. Her name is spelled about as many different ways as there are dates for her death- we can place it in late November of 1541- at least one source has it on this, the 27th of November- so let’s go with it.

Blaurer was raised with two brothers in Constance, the famous city on the Bodensee. You might remember it from its famous Council in 1414 that condemned Jan Hus. One of her brothers, Thomas, would become the mayor of the town, and another, Ambrosius, was a Benedictine monk who had studied at Tubingen with Phillip Melanchthon. As Ambrosius became dissatisfied with monastic life, he kept up his correspondence with Melanchthon and soon left the monastery and embraced the Reformation. Margaret was also educated, at least we think so based on praise from the likes of Erasmus, who read her Latin poetry (none of which still exists).

The Reformer Martin Bucer, a friend of Ambrosius, took up a friendly relationship with Margaret- some 70 letters between the two of them still exist. In one memorable letter, she responded to Martin’s complaint to her brother that she should marry and until then would remain “masterless”. She responded that no one who follows Christ is masterless.

Bucer’s letters to her are playful at times- often reading like schoolyard gossip. He wonders about various possible matches for Reformers and even says that were he not married to his wife, Elizabeth, he would marry her. This would be the occasion for a letter from Elizabeth to Margaret that she wasn’t going anywhere.

Ambrosius defended his sister’s singleness as what had allowed her to serve so many in the town. She taught children to read, visited the sick, and one of her biographers credits her with heading the first Protestant Women’s Society. It was her brother Ambrosius who, in writing to Heinrich Bullinger, references her as “Margaret, the best of our sisters, behaves like an arch-deaconess of our church in that she puts her life…in danger. Daily she visits the houses where the patients of the pest are cared for”. The “pest” of which he wrote was the plague which had come to Constance in 1541. As was often the case with those on the frontline of ministry during a plague, Margaret would catch the sickness and succumb sometime in late November of that year.

The position of Deaconess would become a staple in Lutheran churches, to the present day- often a carve out for women in full-time ministry for whom being either a nun (then) or pastor (now) is beyond the theological boundaries. Today we remember that “arch-deaconess” as her brother Ambrosius remarked- Margaret Blaurer

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary, and the daily Revised Common daily Lectionary gives us this to think about as we eat and drink today:

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 27th of November 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who just knows somebody tried to deep fry some manna… It’s a deep human impulse…  he is  Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man wondering if the olives got smaller and then realized my fingers have indeed grown with the rest of me over time… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.