ST. JOAN OF ARC

New Zealand Tablet, 2 September 1920, Page 18

ST. JOAN OF ARC

(By Archbishop Redwood.)

Joan of Arc was a peasant-girl . of the Marches of Lorraine. Born on the day of the Epiphany, 1412, she died on May 30, 1431. Almost the whole of this short life of 19 years was passed in the peaceful occupations of the little village of Domremy. Then towards the end (February 22, 1429-May, 1431) the peasantgirl became a warrior-girl ; the liberatress of France from the'English rule; the victim of most infamous treachery ; the' condemned culprit of an unjust court; the burnt victim and martyr of Rouen. A unique fact in the history of all peoples ! A unique fact in the annals of France! A unique fact in the records of holiness ! Joan, the warrior-girl, raised to the honor of our altars throughout the whole world ! From every standpoint her history is alike admirable and ravishing. When spinning in her father’s house, kneeling in her village church, standing amid the theologians of Poictiers “that examined her mission, or the judges at Rouen bent on her destruction, on horseback before Orleans or Compicgne with her troops, radiantly smiling towards the King of France in the Cathedral of Rheims, weeping in the prison of Chateau-Vienx, in her appeal to the Pope against the sentence of the University of Paris, in her cry towards Jesus while the flames devoured her maiden frame—everywhere she is beautiffil to behold, touching hearts, and drawing tears. She is pure, laborious, intrepid, pious, simple, devoted. Puzzled by no prophesies, quailing in no enterprise. God is with her. She knows it, and says it, and she proves the fact in the shame of death as well as in the glory of life. Powerless to deny facts resting on the bedrock of absolute certainty, unbelievers have attempted to naturally explain her supernatural existence. Their work has been only the work of bad historians and bad Frenchmen. All Voltaire’s wit, all Anatole’s perversity have been spent in vain to lower the saintly Maid. They have verified Pascal’s words to all their crew: I tiered- le* plus credule.s —none so credulous as the incredulous. By the denial of her life’s mystery they have wrapt it in impenetrable darkness far more disconcerting than the mysteries of faith. This unlettered peasant-girl, who heard the voices of St. Catherine and St. Margaret, who conversed with St. Michael, saw more clearly into French politics and ecclesiastical problems of her time than all the statesmen and all the doctors of the Paris University. Of course, she could not have written the J)isco/trs stir 1 Histone llmverselle of Bossuet, nor de Maistre’s Con aidcration sttr la France; but she knew better than Bossuet that all empires depend on God, better than de Maistre she read the map of the Kingdom of St. Louis written in the decress of Heaven. Frenchmen of the Burgundian party were blinded by the triumph of might; the English conquest appeared lawful to them because it had succeeded. In like manner the doctors who went to Bale lost their footmg amid the discussions of the great schism of the West,, and about the Pope’s person and power. In a superior light Joan, the unlettered peasant-oarl understood beyond all doubt that the Pope of Rome is the so c 1 % Slb 6 head of the Church, a the f/etifil Dauphin of Chmon was the sole King of France.’ Besides bei.m t e V f b; a " Ce ’ Joan was «•>. very incarnation of the admirable qualities of, the French race a living synthesis of France’s Catholic policy, a type of . i am e Roman loyalty, an immortal flower spruim virtues^ lanCe * fa,th ’ *" d i,hwtratin R her marvellous otbers" * h , lS page of french annals, as in a hundred naSal Sf 1011 Th ffi^ e “.- the ™ ry tissue of Fr ench _ ..onal life p The affirmation of this truth is in accorto all F- if s ’. l ' ni P artf j the character of consistency erne aTid faith in itS de0 P est and grandest . * Alt Hy - preserves the integrity of the French spiritual patrimony bequeathed to the nation

from remotest antiquity. ; Modern scoffers would €ell us that the ( Church: burnt Joan of ;; Arc of yore, but, , wiser to day, she claims Joan as her own and canonises her ; as a ; saint. ; We answer : the ; judges at Rouen were, prevaricators i who set i their ecclesiastical authority . at; 'the vile, service of their political passions and- English spite. They were not the Church of France, : nor r the Church at all. If clerics wer^found to condemn Joan in 1431, there were clerics also to approve in 1429 her extraordinary mission. From the . cradle at Domremy to the stake at Rouen, Joan ever walked under-the blessings of the true priests of Jesus Christ. The moment the clergy came to know of her .imprisonment, they multiplied processions and prayers in her behalf. When Rouen was reconquered, the King ordered an inquiry, and Cardinal d'Estauteville, helped by the inquisitor John Brehal, revised the iniquitous trial of 1481. Joan's supreme appeal and that of her mother Isabella were conveyed to Rome, Calixtus 111. appointed to rehabilitate the victim, John Brehal, William Chartier, Bishop of Paris, and the Archbishop of Rheims, Juvenel Orsini. The act of rehabilitation, begun by Calixtus 111. in 1455, was finished in the canonisation wrought to-day by Benedict XV. ' Such throughout the course of ages was the mind of the Church concerning Joan of Arc. These homages, ever on the increase for three centuries, entirely submerged and destroy the error of a handful of judges making a mockery of justice. As for France of 1920, she knows and venerates Joan of Arc more than ever before. It is the "lory of Orleans to have ever preserved the memory of the saint, of the Fatherland. By the feast of May 8 which annually., recalled the deliverance of 1429, the admiration and gratitude due to the envoy of heaven, were kepi alive. The voices of the historians of the 19thcentury mingle with the hymns which rise from the Cathedral of Orleans. In" 1869 Bishop Dupanloup petitioned Pope Pius IX. to beatify Joan of Arc. When Pope Pius X. had beatified her, her most ardent admirers felt sure that her canonisation would be in the near future. Was not the statue of Joan of Arc on the work-table of Pope Pius X., in the lowliest villages of France, in the chapels of foreign missions? Was not the life of the incomparable heroine populareven in the nations the least friendly to France? Had not the Bishop of Orleans sworn in" his heart to bring about with all his might and all speed her canonist lion? Miracles were required, and the faith* of Christians obtained them to the full satisfaction of the severe court of the Sacred Congregation of Rues. So Joan is now on our altars a canonised saint. ' -