Sunday, May 4, 2014

St. Joan of Arc, Model Crusader

St. Joan of Arc, Model Crusader

St. Joan of Arc

Born at Domremy in Champagne, probably on 6 January, 1412; died at Rouen, 30 May, 1431.
Jacques d'Arc, Joan's father, was a small peasant farmer, poor but not needy. Joan seems to have been the youngest of a family of five. She never learned to read or write but was skilled in sewing and spinning, and the popular idea that she spent the days of her childhood in the pastures, alone with the sheep and cattle, is quite unfounded. All the witnesses in the process of rehabilitation spoke of her as a singularly pious child, grave beyond her years, who often knelt in the church absorbed in prayer, and loved the poor tenderly.

It was at the age of thirteen and a half, in the summer of 1425, that Joan first became conscious of that manifestation, whose supernatural character it would now be rash to question, which she afterwards came to call her "voices" or her "counsel." It was at first simply a voice, as if someone had spoken quite close to her, but it seems also clear that a blaze of light accompanied it, and that later on she clearly discerned in some way the appearance of those who spoke to her, recognizing them individually as St. Michael (who was accompanied by other angels), St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and others. Joan was always reluctant to speak of her voices. She said nothing about them to her confessor, and constantly refused, at her trial, to be inveigled into descriptions of the appearance of the saints and to explain how she recognized them. None the less, she told her judges: "I saw them with these very eyes, as well as I see you."

The cause of her beatification was introduced upon occasion of an appeal addressed to the Holy See, in 1869, by Mgr Dupanloup, Bishop of Orléans, and, after passing through all its stages and being duly confirmed by the necessary miracles, the process ended in the decree being published by Pius X on 11 April, 1909. A Mass and Office of St. Joan, taken from the "Commune Virginum," with "proper" prayers, have been approved by the Holy See for use in the Diocese of Orléans.
 St. Joan was canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.


St Joan Quotes
"Je me attens a Dieu, mon createur, de tout; je layme (l'ayme) de tout mon cuer"
"I place trust in God, my creator, in all things; I love Him with all my heart."

"Je suis cy envoiée de par Dieu, le roy du ciel"
"I am sent here by God, the King of Heaven".

"Je me attens a mon juge, cest (c'est) le roy du ciel et de la terre"
"I trust in my Judge, who is the King of Heaven and Earth"

"My Voices did come from God and everything that I have done was by God's order." 

St Joan & the Crusades

St. Joan of Arc, ora pro nobis!
Welcome new Knights and Handmaids to the New Crusade

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