Saint Joan of Arc’s mission was a true kind of motherhood

Catherine Royer, a contemporary of Saint Joan of Arc, who had accommodated her for three weeks in her home, left us beautiful testimony about how Joan hastened to accomplish her mission. She used a comparison to characterize Joan’s impatience: "The waiting period seemed to her similar to a future mother in labor."

Coming from that simple woman who was herself both a wife and mother, this remark is very enlightening. Joan's mission was a true kind of motherhood, of a spiritual and virginal nature. Joan, who already carried in her heart the desire to free of the people of France, had to "give birth" to them by her actions and the pains of her passion as well.

Saint Joan repeated to Catherine a popular prophecy according to which "France, lost by a woman, would be restored by a virgin." The woman who lost France was Queen Elisabeth of Bavaria-Ingolstadt, the unworthy mother who disinherited her son, the dauphin Charles. The virgin who would restore France was obviously Joan herself. She had a clear awareness of being this virgin, the bearer of liberation, following in the footsteps of Mary the Virgin Mother who bore and gave the world the Savior.

This popular prophecy was like a political reflection or an echo of the famous comparison between Eve and Mary. Saint Joan of Arc had a great love for the Blessed Virgin.

Father François-Marie Léthel, ocd, Adapted from Zenit

Secretary of the Pontifical Academy of Theology and Professor at the Tereasianum Pontifical Faculty of Theology