It is easy to underestimate the darkness of that time prior to the Reformation. It is just as easy to underestimate the darkness in our own day. On this day, we do not simply recall an event but the work of God recalling His Church to the eternal Gospel. We proclaim with clarity that justification by grace through faith is not some Lutheran quirk but is the message of Christ, affirmed by Paul and kept in trust by the Church down through the centuries as our greatest treasure.
