SAINT FOR THE MONTH

 

SAINT JOAN OF ARC

Feastday: MAY 16th

St. Joan of Arc, in French, Jeanne d'Arc, also called the Maid of Orleans, was born at Domrémy circa January 6, 1412. Citing a mandate from God to drive the English out of France, she was eventually given an escort to bring her before Charles of Ponthieu (later King Charles VII). After gaining the approval of the Church scholars at Poitiers in March of 1429, she was granted titular command of an army which quickly lifted the siege of Orléans on May 8, 1429, captured Jargeau, Meung-sur-Loire, and Beaugency in mid-June, and defeated an English army at Patay on June 18.

 

After accepting the surrender of the city of Troyes and other towns, the army escorted Charles to the city of Rheims for his coronation on July 17. An unsuccessful attack was made on Paris on September 8, followed by the successful capture of St-Pierre-le-Moutier on November 4. As a reward for her service, Charles VII granted her noble status along with her family on December 29, 1429.

 

She returned to the field the following year, despite predicting her own defeat. Captured at Compiègne on May 23, 1430 and sold to the English for 10,000 livres, she was placed on trial in Rouen by a selected group of pro-English clergy, many of whom nevertheless had to be coerced into voting for a guilty verdict. Convicted and executed on May 30, 1431, she was subsequently declared innocent by the Inquisition on July 7, 1456 after a lengthy re-trial process which was initiated shortly after the English were finally driven from Rouen, thereby allowing access to the documents and witnesses associated with her trial; the presiding Inquisitor, Jean Bréhal, ruled that the original trial had been tainted by fraud, illegal procedures, and intimidation of both the defendant and many of the clergy who had taken part in the trial, and she was therefore described as a martyr by the Inquisitor.

 

After the usual lengthy delay associated with the sluggish process of canonization, she was beatified on April 11, 1909 and canonized as a saint on May 16, 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.

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