May 30
St. Joan of Arc (1412-1431)
Burned at the stake as a heretic after a politically-motivated trial, Joan was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.
She was born of a fairly well-to-do peasant couple in Domremy-Greux (southeast of Paris),
Joan was only 12 when she experienced a vision and heard voices that she later identified as Sts. Michael the Archangel, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. Margaret of Antioch.
During the Hundred Years War, she led French troops against the English and recaptured the cities of Orléans and Troyes. This enabled Charles VII to be crowned as king in Reims in 1429. Captured near Compiegne the following years, she was sold to the English and placed on trial for heresy and witchcraft. Professors at the University of Paris supported Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvis, the judge at her trial; Cardinal Henry Beaufort of Winchester, England, participated in the questioning of Joan in prison. In the end, she was condemned for wearing men's clothes. Her trial took place during the 100 Year's War between France and England; the English resented France's military success–
to which Joan contributed.
On this day in 1431, she was burned at the stake in Rouen, and her ashes were scattered in the Seine River.
A second Church trial 25 years later nullified the earlier verdict, which was reached under political pressure.
Remembered by most people with her later military exploits, Joan had a great love for the sacraments, which strengthened her compassion toward the poor. Popular devotion to her increased greatly in 19th-century France and later among French soldiers during World War I. Theologian George Tavard writes that her life "offers a perfect example of the conjunction of contemplation and action" because her spiritual insight is that there should be a
"unity of heaven and earth."
She has been the subject of many books, plays, operas, and movies.
