Reformation Day

“The Church Year makes the time which has been redeemed forever. An old writer describes the Church of All-Saints at Wittenberg, as a manger, where in his lowly glory the Son of God was born again. Blessed forever be that day! On it, through all time, men shall gather, bringing their offerings of praise; remembering, treasure, and keeping untarnished, the holy faith whose restoration was thus begun. It is well, then, to have added to the grand order of the Church Year, the Festival of the Reformation, and to the revolution of the centuries, its Jubilee…For if the Reformation lives through her, she also lives by it. It has to her the mysterious relation of Christ to David; if it is her offspring, it is also her root…The Festival of the Reformation is at once a day of Christmas and of Easter and of Pentecost, in our Church year; a day of birth, a day of resurrection, a day of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Let its return renew that life, and make our Church press on with fresh vigor in the steps of her risen Lord, as one begotten again, and born from the dead, by the quickening power of the Spirit of her God. Let every day be a Festival of the Reformation, and every year a Jubilee.” (CP Krauth, “Conservative Reformation,” 3–4)