Joan of Arc

- Sleeping Joan of Arc (Joan of Arc on her way to Reims) by George W. Joy

As mentioned in a post at Pray Tell, today is the anniversary of the death of St. Joan of Arc, who was burnt at the stake on May 30th in 1431. Given that I'm a peace-nik, it's strange that I find her interesting, but I do. I thought I'd post of few bits from my past posts about her.

In Ten for the 4th, I mentioned a movie about her - The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc - a 1999 film directed by Luc Besson and starred Milla Jovovich (Joan) and John Malkovich (Charles VII of France). It didn't get the greatest of reviews (Ebert gave it two stars) but it did have some arresting visual imagery .....



In A fool for Christ, I posted an except from Fr. James Martin's book, My Life With the Saints, in which he discusses a painting of her. Here's the painting by Jules Bastien-LePage ...



In Leonard Cohen's Joan and Bernadette, I posted the lyrics to Cohen's song Joan of Arc ...

Now the flames they followed joan of arc
As she came riding through the dark;
No moon to keep her armour bright,
No man to get her through this very smoky night.
She said, I’m tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
A wedding dress or something white
To wear upon my swollen appetite.

Well, I’m glad to hear you talk this way,
You know I’ve watched you riding every day
And something in me yearns to win
Such a cold and lonesome heroine.
And who are you? she sternly spoke
To the one beneath the smoke.
Why, I’m fire, he replied,
And I love your solitude, I love your pride.

Then fire, make your body cold,
I’m going to give you mine to hold,
Saying this she climbed inside
To be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of joan of arc,
And high above the wedding guests
He hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

It was deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of joan of arc,
And then she clearly understood
If he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

In Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Paris, I posted a photo of the statue of her there ...



In my post Bad girls in church, I posted an excerpt from an article that mentioned Joan - The Best and the Brightest of the Catholic Bad Girls by Frances Kissling.

In Magical swords, I wrote about the book, The Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott, which has Joan of Arc as one of the characters (still alive in the present).

In The discernment of spirits and connecting with God, I posted an excerpt from an article by Michael J. Buckley SJ, from a 1975 issue of The Way, in which he mentions Joan as someone who was guided by spirits - The Structure of the Rules for Discernment of Spirits.

And finally, in my post Anna Hyatt Huntington, I published a photo of a sculpture of Joan ....