What is the communion of saints? The Pope explains"Holiness today" at the center of a congress held at the VaticanAs is known, Joan was born during the Hundred Years' War between France and England, in 1412, in the small village of Domrémy, belonging to the province of Armagnac, loyal to the French Dauphin Charles, in contrast to the neighboring villages of Maxey, supporters of the English and their Burgundian allies. The latter, forgetting their roots, aspired to be independent of France.
The anguish suffered by the French because of the war was also experienced by her since, in her youth, in her hometown she suffered the terror of the Burgundians and various bandits.
As a peasant, she soon became accustomed to the hard work of her rural environment. With no more education than elementary Christianity, typical of those simple people, she knew how to weave and spin; she also knew how to ride a horse and rode it in the races of her village.
When she was twelve years old, she heard, next to the church, a voice accompanied by a radiance, which told her to frequent the house of God more, to be virtuous and to trust in the protection of Heaven.
When she was seventeen or eighteen, in 1428, those voices, which she attributed to the archangel St. Michael, accompanied by St. Catherine and St. Margaret, became more imperative ("Leave your village, daughter of God, and run to France! Take your banner and raise it bravely! You will lead the Dauphin to Reims, so that he may be worthily consecrated there! You will free France from the English!") and she decided to obey them, thus giving rise to her incredible adventure.
Saving the kingdom of France did not then seem to have any chance of being realized. The struggle between France and England had been going on for more than ninety years. Only five years earlier, the last two major armies in the Dauphin's service had been shattered. No human intervention seemed possible. Pope Martin V himself, besides being close to his death, was busy putting some order in the Church divided by the schism.
However, that poor young woman was able to attract to her mission, in the first place, a valiant royal officer, who had begun by laughing at the shepherdess, and ended by giving her his sword, his horse and his escort. When she reached Chinon, the locality where the Dauphin had taken refuge, she recognized the latter, who had concealed his condition, by slyly placing himself among his courtiers. And, after being examined in Poitiers by a commission of priests and doctors, she began her military epic: on May 8, 1429, she entered the besieged Orleans, and, after forcing the besiegers to lift the siege, she entered the city with troops hitherto accustomed to continuous defeats. Then, in a few weeks, the clearing of the Loire valley took place, the victory of Patay was achieved -on June 18- and the march on Reims took place, through a region controlled by the English. On July 17 took place, in the basilica of Reims, the consecration of the Dauphin that would make him king of France.
On May 24, 1430, it was captured in Compiègne by the Burgundians, who sold it to the English for 10,000 escudos of gold. The English chose as chief judge Peter Chaucon, Bishop of Beauvais, puppet man of the Burgundians and mortal enemy of the royal party. The prisoner was denied the services of a lawyer. As Joan's attitude won admiration and sympathy among those present, the trial was held behind closed doors inside the prison. She was condemned as a heretic and handed over to the civil power who condemned her to be burned alive.
In the process, which lasted from February to May 1430, there was a previous will to condemn the accused, showing that the voices she heard were diabolical, thus discrediting the new King Charles VII.
A Church historian -Daniel Rops-, values Joan of Arc's patriotism in this way: In God he loved France, as the saints loved the poor and sinners in God; and he loved her precisely because he saw her as miserable, torn, sinful, and he loved her with a love of redemption. There was nothing proud or aggressive in this love; he never spoke of going to conquer England, nor of imposing his domination on anyone. He never thought that, in doing what he was doing, he was filling his country with glory and that his exploits would give him the right to command others. He fought for God's reign of justice and for no other cause: Does God hate the English, they will ask him, setting a trap for him. Not at all. He loves them as much as any other people, but in their land, according to equity, and not when they infringe on the liberties of others. Joan was not so much fighting the English as she was fighting injustice. No heroine on the battlefield ever showed herself so tender and fraternal with her own enemies.
Another historian -Jose A. Dunney- said that, When she took up the sword, France was a defeated nation; but, before dying, a martyr of truth, Joan rescued her beloved country from the clutches of the invader and saved it from schism. Had the French been defeated, they would have joined the victor, England, and then the heretical House of Tudor would have found support in the French Huguenots to extirpate the influence of the Church.
When, on May 30, 1431, he went to the stake on the old market square in Rouen, he proclaimed to the end his fidelity to the Pope, to whom he addressed his last appeal.
Four years after Joan's martyrdom, France and Burgundy were reconciled by the Treaty of Arras; the following year, Paris fell into the hands of the Burgundians and, shortly after, the English crossed the Channel and returned to their homeland.
She was canonized in 1920, Pope Benedict XV.
