Absolute Unshakable Faith

I just finished watching the first episode of the Martin Scorsese documentary series “The Saints,” which features the story of Joan of Arc. In a world where faith is often questioned, the story of Joan of Arc stands as a beacon of unwavering belief. For those of you who don’t know the story of Joan, she was a young peasant girl born in 1412 in Domrémy, France. Despite being a young peasant girl in medieval France, Joan’s divine visions propelled her onto the grand stage of history. At the age of 13, she began to hear voices, which she believed were sent by God. These voices, which she attributed to Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret, urged her to support Charles VII and help liberate France from English domination during the Hundred Years’ War.

You see, Joan is the perfect example of someone who had an epiphany from God. She truly believed that God was delivering a message to her. In her moments of solitude, Joan heard the voices of Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret. They revealed God’s will to her—she was to save France and ensure Charles VII’s coronation. Despite her young age and lack of military experience, she displayed incredible conviction and courage in following these divine commands.

Was she truly hearing the angels, or was she crazy as they originally thought? Even when her own countrymen doubted her and the English labeled her a heretic, Joan’s faith never wavered. Today, if someone did the outrageous things that Joan did and faithfully stuck to their claim that God was telling them to do these things, how would we treat them? We clearly would not accept them just as Fr. James Martin says in the commentary at the end of the episode.

Joan was ultimately burned at the stake as a heretic. It wasn’t until 1920, nearly 500 years later, that she was canonized as a saint. What would we do today to someone who truly believed like Joan, who had an epiphany like Joan, who stuck to their guns no matter what? If someone today claimed to hear divine voices urging them to a seemingly impossible mission, would we have the faith to believe in them as Joan believed in herself? I would like to think I could. I may not be able to live exactly as Christ did, but I hope that I could have the kind of faith she had, and when I die, people will say I had faith like Joan. As Martin Scorsese described it, “At the heart of absolutely everything… Is her faith. Her absolute, unshakable faith.”

Joan of Arc’s story reminds us that true faith can move mountains, and in her words, “I am not afraid, I was born to do this.”