A continuation of the reading of the gospel according to Saint John. This is the same passage day after day. Our lord said, I have have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. When he comes, however, being the spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but will speak only what he hears and will announce to you the things that are to come.
In doing this, he will give glory to me because he will have received from me what he will announce to you. All that the father has belongs to me, and that is why I said that what he will announce to you, he will have from me. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Today is the feast of Saint John Dark, Joan of Arc, the patroness of France, a great national saint, and of course, in many ways, target of nationalism.
But that's not why I'm bringing her in here this morning. I just read briefly her life in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, and what I want to bring home to you is the viability of Christ Church known as the Catholic Church. Now you've heard me say so often, the company we keep, you know, the saints and all that in which we will be along. And this is all very true. But you see, we don't realize it enough.
Remember, if in 1984, you say you wanna be a Christian, and if you say that Christ founded a church, then where is it? Is it when you I just received a testimony of baptism in preparation for marriage for a non Catholic in which the minister wrote, was baptized into the Christian church. Where is this Christian church when you have so many of them arguing and contradicting each other? Can the church of Jesus Christ contradict itself? If so, where is truth?
What I wanna bring home today is the continuity of the visible church of Jesus Christ in the person of this little saint. She died when she was only 19 years old. She died in 1431, was born in 1412. Now I'm going to give you dates. I love dates, especially when they're written down on paper and I don't have to remember them.
But to me, there's a terrific, significance here. Just listen to these dates. 1412, the little girl was born in Lorraine, Doremi. In 1425, at the age of 13, she begins to hear voices. Put that in quotation marks.
I don't know what she heard. The church has never said what she heard, but she's heard voices. She heard them for five years and told nobody about them. She kept it to herself. So fourteen twenty five, she begins to hear voices.
Then in 1429, four years later, she leaves home secretly following the dictates of these voices. This is this is 1429. She leaves home. She meets Charles the seventh at Chinon, which is on the Loire, beautiful, old it's much of it remains. It's a fantastic place even now.
She meets Charles the seventh at Chinon who had not yet been crowned king of the Kingdom Of France. Not of France, but the Kingdom Of France. And, you know, she's recognized she recognizes him and all that. Anyway, she then leads this girl girl from from Lorraine. Lorraine, She she leads leads his his army.
Army. Matter of fact, she's the main cause of gathering the the troops together, and she leads him and eventually has him crowned in Reims. It's a well known city of France. He was crowned in 1429. No.
She was born in 1412. She's only 17 years old, and she just came from a peasant family. Here she is leading troops. 1430, that is one year later, she's captured by the Burgundians who were very much pro English. English had control of a lot of France.
The Burgundians sell her to the English, and the English set her up on trial as a relapsed heretic. Because you see, if they can get the ecclesiastical court to condemn her as a heretic, then you see, all her influence over Charles will be dispelled because she was some kind of a witch or something, you know. So in 1430, she's captured. In 1431, she's trialed at Rouen. The ecclesiastical court under Cauchon, who was a scoundrel, sentenced her to death as a relapsed heretic, and then she was burned in Rouen at the age of 19.
That's 1431. So she's born in 1412, she's burned in 1431. Now, 1449 to '56, seven years. The ecclesiastical court in Rome then re examines her, and And after seven years of investigating the case, after hearing a 115 witnesses or so and notice this is 1449 to '56. Plenty of people were living who knew her and all that.
She has re she is she is rehabilitated as a good Catholic person. That's all. She has she has the the ecclesiastical court, which had condemned her at Rouen, that is negated. Now nothing happens until 1909 when this little shepherd girl from Lorraine, peasant girl, who had led armies at the age of 17, who had put some backbone into a Pusillanimous so called king, Charles the seventh. Here in 1909, that same church, now beatifies her.
And in 1920, she is canonized. That from her birth to her canonization is five hundred and eight years. Now the point is this, that church into which she was baptized up in Lorraine in Doremi, that same church, five hundred and some years later, canonizes her. Now that's continuity. That's the church.
And notice notice what this is. Notice how we have this English ecclesiastical court under who'd been rector of the University of Paris and was very pro English, how their decision is nullified. But she's not forgotten. And it's not until the twentieth century that her cause is taken up again and she but it's that continuity I wanna bring home to you. Now it's not a continuity as smooth as a fine piece of velvet ribbon.
If ribbons are velvet, I don't know. It's a it's a it's a it's a continuity of turmoil. Remember, this is the fifteenth century. Now just think what happens in the sixteenth century. Every century has its turmoil.
The church has never been tranquil. I just finished reading, you haven't heard me mention this for some time, this life of Saint Augustine Bishop. You talk about turmoil and tumult. The church has never it's like talking about the sea. The sea is always there, but one day it's as calm as a mirror, and the next day it's like mountains.
And I'm not exaggerating. It's a threat to you. But it's there. There's continuity. And our blessed lord said that notice, he said, I am with you until the end of the world, and the gates of hell will not prevail against you.
He never said they wouldn't try to. He never said that the bark of Peter wouldn't be wouldn't be torn apart almost, that it wouldn't be tossed about like a cork on the on a stormy sea. He never said that. He promised that it would happen. He said, I come to bring the sword.
I I and he died on a cross. He didn't come to bring tranquility. This this nice peace that we talk about, which is absolutely a fiction. No life has it that's worth living. And so today as the it's not the universal church, but today as the church recognizes this younger who died at 19, recognizes her as a saint and she's a saint, not as a martyr, but as a virgin.
Virgin. Now, of course, there today, if you if you're aware of it, there's there's a lot of criticism and condemnation, which is absolutely in line with the his the historical attitude, because the main job of many historians today is simply to knock down the edifices of the past. But the thing is there are what with the facts the facts I've given you this morning are without question, without any question. So here is a here is an illustration of our church. And if you ask what is the distinct character that that is most obvious about the Catholic church, it's its physical presence.
Its physical presence. How long since the day that Christ said to Peter, upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.