Unknown God gives Luther a wife God gives Luther a wife The Roman Catholic Church taught that it was sinful for a priest to marry. When Luther began to study the Bible, he discovered that God had never made such a law. On June 13, 1525, Luther married Catherine von Bora. Two years earlier, Catherine (or Katie, as Luther fondly called her) and several other women had escaped from a convent. Luther and his wife loved each other very much, and they were a good help to each other. The Lord blessed them with six children. One of the children, Magdalena, died on September 20, 1542, at the age of thirteen. Luther and his family were very sad, but they also rejoiced, knowing that this child was taken to heaven to be with her Savior forever. Luther loved children and wrote a catechism for them, as well as many songs. Some of them are still sung today. Do you know the songs “Away in a Manger” and “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”? Luther wrote these songs, as well as more than 125 hymns. In 1524, he published the first German hymnbook. It contained only eight hymns, but each time it was printed more hymns were added. The German people loved to sing these hymns with their families or as they went about their daily activities.