St. Joan of Arc - The Maid of Orleans

Rebroadcast of the long-running radio program, "The Ave Maria Hour," a presentation of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. www.AtonementFriars.org

Joan of Arc was born on January 6, 1412 in Domremy, France to a peasant family. She was only 12 when she experienced a vision and heard voices that she later identified as Saints Michael the Archangel, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch. Joan believed that God had chosen her to lead France to victory in its Hundred Years’ War with England.

With no military training, Joan convinced the embattled crown prince Charles of Valois to allow her to lead a French army to the besieged city of Orleans, where it achieved a momentous victory over the English. After seeing the prince crowned King Charles VII, Joan was captured by the English and tried for witchcraft and heresy. She was found guilty and burned at the stake in 1431, at the age of 19. She was posthumously acquitted at a retrial 25 years later. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.