Posted on 01/06/2012 7:07:21 AM PST by marshmallow
JOAN OF ARC was born 600 years ago. Six centuries is a long time to continue to mark the birth of a girl who, according to her family and friends, knew little more than spinning and watching over her father’s flocks. But type her name into Amazon’s search engine and you get more than 6,000 results. France’s national archives include tens of thousands of volumes about her. She has been immortalized by Shakespeare, Voltaire, Twain, Shaw, Brecht, Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Rubens; more recently, her life was fodder for the CBS television series “Joan of Arcadia.”
What is it about Joan of Arc? Why is her story of enduring interest more than a half a millennium after her birth?
By the time Joan of Arc was 16 and had proclaimed herself the virgin warrior sent by God to deliver France from her enemies, the English, she had been receiving the counsel of angels for three years. Until then, the voices she said she heard, speaking from over her right shoulder and accompanied by a great light, had been hers alone, a rapturous secret.
But in 1428, when the voices pressed her to undertake the quest for which they had been preparing her, they transformed a seemingly undistinguished peasant into a visionary heroine who defied every limitation placed on a woman of the late Middle Ages. The least likely of military leaders, Joan of Arc changed the course of the Hundred Years’ War and of history.
Joan said she sheared off her hair, dressed in male attire, put on armor and took up her sword at God’s behest. She was feverish in her determination to succeed at what was, by anyone’s measure, a preposterous mission. As Joan herself protested to her voices, she “knew not how to ride or lead in war”;.........
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The voices and visitations by supernatural beings would probably be regarded as a mental illness today. Perhaps they were, perhaps not.
I wonder if the Slimes published this to rekindle their brain dead readers sense of hero worship.. I’d say it’s part of their reelection strategy.
Another news writer does not understand Joan of Arc. Until you see that she had “Faith” you cannot understand why she was recognized as a saint.
She followed the example of Jesus Christ, and gave up her entire life to follow a mission from heaven. Saying it was “voices of angels” obfuscates the real motive behind her actions and degenerates her figure.
Its that same mindset that existed in that psychological nightmare she endured at her trial. Its wrong, and does no good to her name, which was a brilliant reflection of the power of the grace of God. “who has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly.” (Lk 1:52)
Sarah is that good, and her enemies -- the burn her at the stake crowd -- know it.
My late mother loved all books about Joan of Arc. As a hobby she wrote a Play about St Joan. She still inspires after all these years.
My husband and 10 year-old son just read Twain’s Joan of Arc to each other earlier this year. It really was a touching and inspiring book.
I just finished Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court last week. I will put Joan of Arc on my future reading list.
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