Saint Joan of Arc, Virgin - May 30th

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:05]May 30th, Saint Joan of Arc. The church officially remembers Joan of Arc not as a martyr, but as a virgin, the maid of Orleans. Of course, Joan was a martyr, but not in the technical sense. She died because she did what she thought God wanted her to do, but she was killed for her politics, not her faith. Pagans did not execute her for refusing to worship their gods. Infidels did not slay her for defying them. Political enemies burned her at the stake for defeating them in battle. Paradoxically, Christian people, good and bad alike, cheered at her demise. Other Christians wept. The incongruity may trouble us, but Joan would have expected it. The war she fought embroiled the French Christians against English Christians. We, too, have waged wars like that, pitting Christian against Christian. Just as we may have felt that God was on our side, Joan believed that God was with the French. When judges who condemned her asked her if the heavenly voices she followed to war spoke in English, she replied tartly, "Why should they speak English when they were not on the English side?" Joan was born into the violent times of the 15th century.

[00:01:14]During her childhood, King Henry V of England invaded France and seized Normandy. He laid claim to the crown of the French King Charles VI, who was mentally ill. Paralyzed by civil war between the Duke of Burgundy and the Duke of Orleans, the French could not put up much of a defense. Things worsened when the agents of the Duke of Orleans murdered the Duke of Burgundy.

[00:01:35]The Burgundians reacted by becoming England's allies. Eventually, Burgundian mercenaries brought the war home to Joan's family. The raiders sacked the little village where she lived, forcing them to flee. Thus, the indiscriminate brutality of the war disrupted Joan of Arc's pleasant childhood and acquainted her with fear. Joan was only 12 when she experienced a vision and heard voices that she later identified as Saints Michael the Archangel, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch. By May of 1428, Joan's voices had become relentless and specific. They directed her to go at once to a town nearby to offer her services to Robert de Baudricourt. He greeted her, however, with laughter, telling her that her father should give her a good spanking.

[00:02:21]At that time, conditions were deteriorating for the French. The English had put Orléans under siege and the stronghold was in grave danger.

[00:02:28]Joan's voices became more insistent.

[00:02:30]"But I am merely a girl. I cannot ride a horse or wield a weapon," she protested.

[00:02:34]"It is God who commands it," came the reply. Unable to resist any longer, Joan secretly made her way back. When she arrived, she told the commander a fact she could have only known by revelation.

[00:02:45]She said the French army on that very day had suffered a defeat in Orléans.

[00:02:50]Joan urged him to send her to Orléans so that she might fulfill her mission. When official reports confirmed Joan's word, he finally took her seriously and sent her to Charles VII. She was outfitted with white armor and provided a special standard bearing the names Jesus and Mary. The banner depicted two kneeling angels offering a fleur-de-lis to God.

[00:03:11]On April 29th, 1429, Joan led her army into Orléans. Miraculously, she rallied the town. By May 8th, the French had captured the English forts and had lifted the siege. An arrow had penetrated the armor over Joan's breast, but the injury was not serious enough to keep her out of the battle. Everything, including the wound, occurred exactly as Joan had prophesied before the campaign.

[00:03:35]A peasant maiden had defeated the army of a mighty kingdom, a humiliation that demanded revenge. Joan urged that Charles VII be crowned king, but the French leaders dragged their feet.

[00:03:47]Finally, however, July 17th, 1429, Charles VII was anointed king of France.

[00:03:53]The Maid of Orleans stood triumphantly on his side. Joan had accomplished her mission. During the battle at Orleans, the voices had told Joan she had only a little time left. Her shameful end lurked ominously in the shadows. She later sustained a serious arrow wound in the thigh during an unsuccessful attack on Paris. In May 1430, she led a force to relieve a siege. However, her efforts failed and the Burgundians captured her.

[00:04:21]Through the summer and the fall, the Duke of Burgundy held Joan captive. But on November 21st, 1430, the Burgundians sold Joan to the English for a large sum. The English were quite eager to punish the maiden who had bested them.

[00:04:34]They could not execute Joan for winning, but they could impose capital punishment for sorcery or heresy. For several months, she was chained in a cell in a castle where five coarse guards constantly taunted her. Finally, on February 1431, Joan appeared before a tribunal headed by an avarice and wicked bishop. Joan had no chance for a fair trial. She stood alone before devious judges, an uneducated girl conducting her own defense. The panel interrogated her six times in public, nine times in private. They questioned her closely about her visions, voices, male dress, faith, and submissionness to the church.

[00:05:11]Giving good, sometimes even unexpectedly clever answers, Joan handled herself courageously. However, the judges took advantage of her lack of education and tricked her up on a few slippery theological points. The panel packed its summary with her damaging replies and condemned her with that unfair report.

[00:05:28]They declared that demons inspired her revelations. The tribunal decided that she was to die a heretic. The judges remanded her to the state for execution.

[00:05:38]The next morning, she was taken to the public square and burnt at the stake.

[00:05:42]From her neck, a placard was hung with the words heretic, apostate, and idolater. A crowd was present in the square. 600 English soldiers guarded her. When she arrived at the site, she asked for a cross. An English soldier broke the stick of a lance, tied the two pieces together in the shape of a cross, and gave to her. After receiving the precious symbol, she was tied to the stake over firewood. Then she called out loudly to St. Michael. The executioner lighted the firewood that was soaked with oil, and the fire grew furiously from bottom to top. As the flames enveloped her, Joan shouted out strongly reaffirming her fidelity to her mission.

[00:06:22]"I was not mistaken. The voices came from heaven." In a few minutes, everything was finished. The ashes were swept into the waters of the Seine River. Even the heart of the maid, which had remained intact since it had not burned in the flames, was cast into the river. That the flames consumed the body but spared her heart is something very beautiful. To have heart is not to be sentimental. To have heart is to have strength of soul, great value, love for elevated things, love for the supernatural mission God gave us. And if ever someone had heart, this one was St. Joan of Arc. Thus, the beautiful fact, the body was consumed by fire, but not the heart. It was a miracle of heaven to confirm what she had just affirmed minutes before, that the voices came from heaven. She was already in heaven, but her heart was still on earth, confirming the truth she had spoken. The English command commanders understood quite well the danger in keeping that heart. They sensed keenly the devotion that this heart would inspire, and they had a great fear of that heart. Just as the Jews had fear of the cadaver of our Lord and sent guards to watch over his sepulcher. For this reason, then, the English cast her heart into the river.

[00:07:33]It is the characteristic hardness of the impious that should not surprise us. 23 years after her death, Joan's mother and brothers asked that her case be reopened. The Pope appointed a commission to review the matter and in 1456 the new panel repudiated the trial and the verdict and completely restored Joan's reputation. She was later canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict the 15th.