November 1, 2025

My favorite saint of all time is Joan of Arc.  She was a peasant girl whose visions and locutions were not only signs of psychosis by modern psychological standards, but dangerous pitfalls by the measure of the spiritual masters of her own day.  Nevertheless, beneath whatever compromised psychic structure she had been created with was a pure faith in the living God who loved her to her core and constantly called her into communion.  Thus, despite the awkwardness of publicly testifying that God, in the form of an angel, had insisted that she dress as a man and lead armies into battle, Joan just kept trusting all the way to the point of death.  In the process, she utterly embarrassed the expert theologians, monks and clerics, who were so weighed down by their scholastic edifices that they had become blind to the truth of the living God, and inspired myriads of human beings – including famous skeptics such as Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw – to pay attention to that deep truth who confers life even beyond understanding.  Let’s therefore spend some time this week with our favorite saint and look forward to that graced moment when we might thank them in person for their friendship and guidance.  We just may discover, in that place, that myriads of souls have been inspired by our own sincere efforts to live authentically.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.