Joan of Arc beatified

Joan was a peasant girl, born of Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée, with a fairly unremarkable childhood in English-controlled France around the same of the Hundred Years War. Unremarkable, at least, until her early teenage years when she began hearing voices of the saints, who told her the Dauphin of France (the heir apparent to the throne) should take his crown in the British-held city of Rheims. Through her dogged determination and unwavering piety, combined with the surreptitiousness of the Dauphin, she was granted leadership of a small contingent of troops, which she used to drive out the British from several forts in a series of unlikely victories.

On this day, April 18, in 1909, Joan, whose memory was preserved in popular culture thorough the ages,  was declared to be blessed by Pope Pius X in a ceremony held in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

Joan’s faith did not waver even after her capture by the British at Battle of Compiegne. Her trial was well publicized in an attempt to discredit her followers and the supporters of the French dauphin — she was accused of heresy and witchcraft. While near her final days she did sign an abjuration of her views (stating they were all a lie), she recanted it just two days later, even as she was threatened with losing her life. Her last words before the execution were reportedly, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”