Biography
Jeanne d'Arc was born to a peasant family in Domrémy, France, during the Hundred Years' War. From age 13, she reported receiving visions and voices of St. Michael the Archangel, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret, who told her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination. Despite her youth and peasant origins, she convinced the Dauphin to let her accompany the French army. Wearing white armor, she led the French to victory at Orléans in 1429, a turning point in the war. After Charles VII's coronation at Reims, Joan was captured by Burgundian forces, sold to the English, and tried for heresy and witchcraft by a church court corrupted by English political pressure. She was burned at the stake at age 19 in Rouen. A posthumous retrial in 1456 declared her innocent. Pope Pius X beatified her in 1909.
Miracles & Signs
- ✦Victory at Orléans against overwhelming odds, deemed miraculous by contemporaries
- ✦Predicted her own capture, wound, and victory at Orléans
- ✦Locating a sword hidden behind an altar at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois without prior knowledge
Wisdom & Quotes
“I am not afraid. I was born to do this.”
“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.”
“Children say that people are hanged sometimes for speaking the truth.”
“Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can.”
“All battles are first won or lost in the mind.”