Editing Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God (section)

== Friday, Nov 29: the improbable story of Saint Joan of Arc (1412-1431 AD) ==
Joan the Maiden, as she is known in France, ''Jeanne la pucelle'', was a thirteen year old farm girl from a remote village in eastern France when she saw a vision of the Archangel Michael in a tree. Her visions of the Archangel and other Saints continued periodically until, when she was 16, they instructed her to go save France.

We’ll review her remarkable story, starting with the obvious question, ''is it true?'' and then discuss the contingency, if it weren’t for Joan, ''what would likely have happened?'' 

We’ll look at the historical implications of her episodes as well as a lovely series of paintings of Joan held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Here for images of Saint Joan of the Arc, a set held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington: 
<gallery widths="300">
File:La vision et l'inspiration de Louis-Maurice Boutet de Montvel.jpg|<small>'''''La Vision''''' (Vision of the Archangel St. Michael)</small>
File:Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel, Her Appeal to the Dauphin (Joan of Arc series - II), 1906, NGA 178348.jpg|<small>'''Appeal to the Dauphin''' (The Dauphin had someone else sit on the throne and hid amidst the Court; Joan identified him immediately)</small>
File:Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel, The Maid in Armor on Horseback (Joan of Arc series - III), c. 1908-late 1909, NGA 195105.jpg|<small>'''The Maid in Armor on Horseback''' (Now Commander of the French Armies, Joan marches the army to free Orleans from the English siege)</small>
File:Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel, The Turmoil of Conflict (Joan of Arc series - IV), c. late 1909-early 1913, NGA 176974.jpg|<small>'''The Turmoil of Conflict''' (The Battle of Orleans, which is nearly lost after Joan is hit in the shoulder and neck by a bolt, but she returns to the field and leads the French to victory)</small>
File:Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel, The Crowning at Rheims of the Dauphin (Joan of Arc series - V), 1907, NGA 177912.jpg|<small>'''The Crowning at Rheims of the Dauphin''' (Joan's mission was to have the Dauphin properly crowned King by French custom and in the form of Charlemagne; the leadership thought it was unnecessary, but Joan understood that the people of France needed the ceremony)</small>
File:Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel, The Trial of Joan of Arc (Joan of Arc series - VI), c. late 1909-early 1910, NGA 195567.jpg|<small>'''''The Trial of Joan of Arc''''' (The King and his councilors betray Joan, leaving her to fight the English with small, under-supplied army; she is captured by the French ally of the English and is tried by a French Ecclesiastic court operating under English authority)</small>
</gallery>

And here for the images that the same artist had earlier created for a children's book on Saint Joan: [https://www.jeanne-darc.info/art-image/louis-maurice-boutet-de-monvel/ Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel] Here for a scan of the book: [https://archive.org/details/joanofarc0000bout/page/n35/mode/2up Joan of Arc : Boutet de Monvel, Louis Maurice, 1850-1913]

I’m also fascinated by the secular explanations for Joan’s story. The events are indisputable, so how does Wikipedia explain it all? Same as they explain away Pentecost, delusion and psychoses. Great fun!
----We discussed Joan's story - improbable, indeed! -- and Michael's theory that her purpose was not to save France so much as to save a Catholic France, or Catholicism itself. Whatever truth to that, the historical outcome is that Catholicism remained intact in France while but 86 years after Joan's martyrdom in 1431, Martin Luther launched the Protestantism reformation (95 Theses, 1517), which was followed in England in 1534 with established the Church of England. Had England won the Hundred Years War, which St. Joan prevented (objective fact), France, too, might have become Protestant. You may have an opinion as to that possible outcome, one way or the other, but it is historically significant that France remained Catholic. 

As we discussed, there's a large question as to France's Catholicity today (starting with the anti-clerical French Revolution), but the two hundred years of Church persistence prior to the Revolution was significant.