The Feast of Saint Joan of Arc

Five hundred and ninety years ago today, a devout 19 year-old  virgin from an obscure French village was fastened to a pillar in the village square of Rouen and burned to death by Church authorities, their actions born of political intrigue, spiritual blindness, worldly greed…and great evil.

Young Joan hears her voices

For deeply personal reasons, I have a special devotion to the Maid, and have maintained an intimate relationship with her through prayer and meditation for some years now. There is no one like her. And her presence in the living world of today is real and undeniable.

I am celebrating the Maid’s feast day on this last Sunday of May, with (naturally) feasting, prayer, devotion, and contemplation. Also, I am beginning a novena to Saint Joan, a nine-day cycle of prayer with intentions I will hold close to my own secret heart. I made a novena to her a few years ago, but found a very congenial one on this website, which I will follow starting today.

Jeanne Enters Orleans, by Scherrer (1887)’

In this world of vulgar evil and godless fear and manufactured emotion and cowardly churches, the follower of Christ needs encouragement and strength. For me, I look not only to the example of the Good Shepherd, but also to ordinary people of humble beginnings who displayed courage and grace in terrible circumstances. I look to the example of La Pucelle d’Orleans, who prayed and fought with equal fire, who stopped the mouths and reddened the cheeks of the learned churchmen who trapped her and tricked her and murdered her. This girl, this bare slip of a girl…behold how she inspires and hears those who look to her. Those churchmen, who would no doubt have closed their church doors if the nobility of the day had ordered them for some flimsy reason to do so — where are they? Who looks to them for strength and inspiration?

When I began to be drawn to the teachings of the traditional Roman Catholic Church, one of the stumbling blocks in my path was the reverence shown to the saints. As a kind priest explained to me, “We find it natural to ask sinful, flawed human beings to pray for us…why wouldn’t we ask saints, who are already in Heaven and not subject to the buffeting of sin or even temptation, to pray for us? Are they who are already in glory not more alive than we who are yet here in this world?”  I grasped the force of the truth behind the question, and I have never again been troubled by the communion of the saints.

I am not a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Given the sorry state of that visible group and the lack of the availability of strong, consistent guidance, I probably never will be.  I am Catholic in my heart, and I live as a Catholic in exile, hidden and secret except to my Lord and His watching, listening cloud of witnesses. I would never presume to proselytize anyone about the faith, especially since my own faith is so labile and unsanctioned. But I will say this, on the feast day of Saint Joan of Arc:

Anyone who is bleak of heart and weak of spirit could do worse than to call upon this illiterate little peasant girl, this incandescent dweller of Heaven and ask her to pray for them.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

~ S.K. Orr