voice and visions

St. JOan of Arc 1412-1431
Joan of Arc is probably one of the most bizarre and beautiful stories of women or men of faith. 
She began to have visions  and hearing voices at the age of 12, St.Michael, St Catherine and the like would speak to her and encourage her to help win France back from the English. 


Spurred on by these heavenly locutions and visions, she single handedly began to turn the tide of the French and English conflict.  Under her leadership France began to regain confidence and territory. 


Not bad for a lady who was in her teens as well as one who went around dressed like a man. 


Yet, for all of her heroic effort, she was to be betrayed by the king of France and later tried as a witch and heretic and burned at the stake. 


Some 30 years after her death, the ruling was overturned and she was declared innocent of those said charges. 


In 1920, some 500 years after her death she was canonized a saint. 


What a strange and beautiful story. 


St. Joan of Arc reminds us that divine callings do happen, but they are not always accepted or understandable to those in the church or in the world for that matter.  The mystery of God's calling can leave many bewildered. 


Never the less, the conviction of the call can lead to great acts of courage and heroic virtue.  It can also lead people to do things that form the outside looking in seems a bit rash or foolish or even crazy. 


Yet, the calling  remains a force of which to be reckoned. 


Here is a bit od transcript from her trial which demonstrates St. Joan of Arcs intellect.


The transcript's most famous exchange is an exercise in subtlety. "Asked if she knew she was in God's grace, she answered: 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.'"

Pope Benedict's homily on Pentecost this past Sunday"

 But what is Babel? It is the description of a kingdom in which men have concentrated so much power that they think that they no longer need a distant God and they believe that they are strong enough to build a way to heaven by themselves and open its gates to put themselves in God’s place. But precisely in this situation something strange and unique occurs. While the men were working to build the tower, suddenly they realized that they were working against each other. While they tried to be like God, they ran the risk of no longer even being men, because they lost a fundamental element of being human persons: the capacity to agree, to understand and to work together.

This biblical account contains a perennial truth; we can see it throughout history, but in our world too. With the progress of science and technology we have developed the power to dominate forces of nature, to manipulate the elements, to manufacture living beings, almost attaining the ability to make human beings. In this context, praying to God seems like something obsolete, useless, because we can build and realize anything we want. But we do not grasp that we are reliving the very experience of Babel. Indeed, we have multiplied the possibilities of communicating, of having information, of transmitting news, but can we say that the capacity to understand each other has grown or is it perhaps the case that, paradoxically, we understand each other less and less? Have not a sense of diffidence, of suspicion, of mutual fear worked themselves into our lives to the point that we have become dangerous to each other?