September 15, 2024

Saint Joan of Arc, patroness of France, was born in 1412 and died in 1431 at the age of nineteen. Most of us know a little something about Joan of Arc. She was a peasant girl who began receiving visions that guided her to help save France from the English occupation during the Hundred Years War. She is known specifically for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII as king of France. It was Charles VII who gave this peasant girl her armor, sword, and banner. Her presence on the battlefield, along with the prophecy that a maiden would come to help free the French, helped to inspire courage in the otherwise disheartened French soldiers. This prophecy of the maiden, and the visions Joan received, led her to a perpetual vow of virginity which she emphasized by referring to herself as Joan the Maiden. During many military campaigns, she advised commanders, fought in battle, and was injured on a number of occasions. She was finally captured and turned over to the English who tried her as a heretic and had her executed. Her adherence to the faith was later upheld at trial and she became known as a martyr.

It is not difficult to see how Joan of Arc, a woman who dressed as a man and went into battle much like a man, is seen by many in our cultural confusion as a sign of women’s empowerment and perhaps even transgenderism. While Joan of Arc is certainly a promoter of the understanding that women and men are equal in dignity, it is difficult to see her as holding that men and women are the same. The power of the story of Saint Joan of Arc is that she always knew she was a woman, she emphasized her role as the maiden while employing the courage of a man to take the fight to the enemy. We read in First Corinthians: “Consider your own calling. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-28) In this way, Joan of Arc as a woman, was a sign of contradiction. Her mission was to rouse the courage of the men in her country by displaying the courage they lacked. 

The ways in which women can be a sign of contradiction for men are clearly seen in Sacred Scripture in the stories of Ester, Judith, and Deborah. Ester because she employed her femininity for the salvation of her people, Judith because she is an unmarried woman who rallied the men of her country against their enemy, and Deborah because she empowered the male leadership to stand against their enemies. In all three of these stories, the men were shown to be powerless and so the women had to step forward to bring the men around to the truth of their vocation. 

Jesus tells us that the only sign we will be given is the sign of Jonah. In a world where men need to be men perhaps the sign we need, perhaps the sign we will receive, is the sign of Joan?

Two Parishes, One Heart,

Fr. Adam