St. Joan of Arc was the peasant girl of Domremy who led the armies of France and is a Catholic saint. How did a condemned heretic burned at Rouen become the patron of soldiers and a canonized virgin of the Church?
The ashes at Rouen did not bring the silence the judges expected. Decades after the execution, an old woman named Isabelle Romée walked to Rome and begged Pope Callixtus III to reopen the case of her daughter. At the resulting Rehabilitation Trial, more than a hundred soldiers, neighbors, and clergymen testified to the innocence of La Pucelle, leading to the formal nullification of the condemnation. From those sworn memories and the long centuries of veneration that culminated in the canonization by Pope Benedict XV, the faithful are left with a perennial spiritual teaching on divine calling, bold obedience, and the sustaining grace of the Eucharist.
- A maternal petition: Isabelle Romée and the pilgrimage to Rome that forced the reopening of the case.
- The written verdict: the sworn testimony of eyewitnesses at the Rehabilitation Trial and the public nullification of the condemnation.
- Sacramental armor: the daily grace of the Eucharist that sustained La Pucelle before every major battle.
- Christian spiritual discernment: the constancy, humility, and fruits of the interior life she maintained while listening to The Voices.
Book Three of The Maid of Heaven: A Three-Part Life of St. Joan of Arc. The first volume is The Voice in the Garden, detailing how heaven prepared a young peasant girl before she ever took up arms; the second is Go Forward Bravely, tracing her military victories achieved in holy obedience and her final days of captivity.
Readers seeking a companion to the testimonies of the Rehabilitation Trial and a way into the spiritual teachings of her bold obedience and Eucharistic faith.
