St Joan of Arc, Loraine, France 1425

Feastday: May 30

Born: 1412

Died: 1430

Born in January 1412 at Greux-Domremy, Loraine, France, Joan was the daughter of a small peasant farmer who never learned to read or write. Nevertheless she was a pious child, often absorbed in prayer and loved the poor tenderly. It was to this end that when thirteen years old in 1425 she first became aware of what she called her “voices” or “counsel” – locutions accompanied by a blaze of light which she later discerned to be St Michael (accompanied by other angels), St Margret, St Catherine and others. Joan was always reluctant to speak of her visions and even maintained a silence with her Confessor.

In May 1428 Joan received a locution which instructed her to find the true king of France and help him restore his monarchy. This came at an opportune time as the military situation of King Charles and his supporters against the Burgundians in alliance with the British was growing desperate. Joan's voices became urgent, and even threatening. It was in vain that she resisted, saying to them: “I am a poor girl; I do not know how to ride or fight.” The voices only reiterated: “It is God who commands it.”

After prophesying the defeat of the French outside Orleans on the 17 February her cause won more support and was confirmed when with Divine intervention she set a straight the King’s privately tormented conscience about the legitimacy of his birth. Having rejected the King’s sword on the authority of her supernatural “counsel” she petitioned him to search for an ancient sword buried behind the altar of St. Catherine de Fiierbois which was promptly found in the very spot she prophesied. Carrying her banner which read “Jesus, Mary” depicting God the Father and kneeling angels she went on to lead troops from one victory to another between February 23, 1429 to May 23, 1430 which ultimately resulted in the installation of Charles VII on the throne of France.

Towards the end of her military campaigns her supernatural “counsel” made it known she would be taken prisoner by midsummer’s day. Soon after she was captured by the Burgundians, sold to their allies the English for 10,000 francs and partly out of fear of her prodigious talents and partly out of humiliation for their defeats, had her tried by an ecclesiastical court for heresy. She finally prophesied that within 7 years England would have to forfeit a bigger prize than the war ravaged Orleans. Despite immense pressures from the authorities she refused to describe her apparitions or recant her testimony of them and was summarily handed over the secular authorities and burned at the stake. “Until the last,” said Manchon, the recorder at the trial, “she declared that her voices came from God and had not deceived her.” After a 23 year review in 1456, her case was re-tried and she was acquitted. St. Joan was canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV

References

1. The Catholic Encyclopedia St Joan of Arc Volume VIII 1910 by Robert Appleton Company Online Edition (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409c.htm)