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Saint Joan of Arc The patron saint of France, Saint Joan of Arc was publicly burned at the stake on May 30 (her feast day) in 1431 and her ashes thrown in the Seine. She was only 19 years old. An illiterate peasant girl, she heeded a religious call to save her country, refusing to compromise her conscience. She paid the ultimate price. Saint Joan represents a kind of political holiness, not a church piety or the mystical rapture of the convenient, but a mysticism expressed in a commitment to the world and an engagement in the events of history. Among canonized saints she enjoys the distinction of having been condemned by the church and executed as a heretic, such that those who have been vilified and hope for vindication may claim her as patron. For Cuchama, St Joan on a steak plate was a pun too strong to resist. |
