Saint Joan of Arc
The Maid of Orléans

A teenager with a mission.

Joan was born to a farming family in Domrémy. As a teenager, she reported that Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret called her to aid the French cause and help bring the Dauphin, Charles, to his coronation.

In 1429 she reached Charles after overcoming repeated obstacles. She was examined by theologians and churchmen at Poitiers before being allowed to accompany the French force moving toward the besieged city of Orléans.

Joan believed that Jesus Christ was King of heaven and earth. Prayer, frequent confession, and the Eucharist formed her allegiance to Him. Her love for Jesus demanded care for the suffering, moral discipline, and the courage to act on the mission she had discerned.

She foretold the wound before Les Tourelles.

On 6 May 1429, the eve of the assault on Les Tourelles, Joan’s chaplain Jean Pasquerel later testified that she told him the next day blood would leave her body ‘above the breast.’ A letter written on 22 April also reported beforehand that Joan said she would be wounded by a shaft at Orléans but would not die from it.

On 7 May, during the assault, an arrow struck Joan in the upper chest, above the breast, as Pasquerel described. She withdrew long enough for the wound to be treated, then returned to the fighting. The Tourelles fell that evening, and the English abandoned the siege the following day.

Orléans opened the road to Reims.

The lifting of the siege transformed the French campaign. Joan continued with the army through the Loire campaign and pressed for Charles to go to Reims for his coronation.

On 17 July 1429, Charles VII was crowned at Reims. Joan was present with her standard, one of the clearest images of her public mission brought to completion.

Condemned, then vindicated.

Joan was captured near Compiègne on 23 May 1430 and eventually transferred to English control. At Rouen she underwent an ecclesiastical trial presided over by church judges but conducted amid grave political opposition to her and her mission. She was condemned as a heretic.

She was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, her gaze fixed on the Cross and the name of Jesus on her lips. A later ecclesiastical Trial of Nullity declared the earlier condemnation null in 1456. Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan of Arc on 16 May 1920.