Joan of Arc’s death on May 30, 1431

How appropriate that Memorial Day this year falls on the anniversary of Joan of Arc’s death on May 30, 1431, which is her Feast Day.

Memorial Day began in America as a way to remember fallen soldiers and honor them for their service and ultimate sacrifice. While Saint Joan of Arc was not an American soldier she certainly was the epitome of a true soldier and deserves to be remembered and honored for her service to all humankind. Joan’s feast day is celebrated every year by Catholics on the anniversary of her death and is essentially her memorial day.

” … When people picture Joan of Arc they generally see her as either the great warrior or the inspired saint, both of which she certainly was, however she was also at her core a simple young woman and really probably more accurately just a girl. I recently acquired an engraved plate of the picture of Joan above that I really love because of the way that the artist portrays Joan. According to the information I found about this artist, Henrietta Ward, she was inspired to paint this scene by the words below by the nineteenth century English writer Philip Henry Stanhope (Lord Mahon) who said of Joan: “Her young heart beat high with enthusiasm for her native France, now beset and beleaguered by the island strangers. Her young fancy loved to dwell on those distant battles, the din of which might scarcely reach her quiet village, but each apparently hastening the ruin of her fatherland. ….”

There is a special page at www.MaidOfHeaven.com commemorating Joan’s Feast Day

which gives eyewitness accounts of her last moments and the heroic way
that she died. Joan of Arc Feast Day.

WOMAN of ACTION – Joan of Arc

A Celebration of Women