The Dove and Rose - Chapter 11

My life with Ste Jeanne d'Arc began January 6, 1412

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(This meditation was given to me on December 8, 2011, during the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the most holy and glorious Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and of earth. It is an answer to a prayer conceived in the Spring of 2011 when I knew not how to proceed. My heart pours forth in gratitude to the Holy Virgin, Ste. Jeanne d’Arc, Ste. Thérèse de Lisieux and St. Philomena for their intercession with Jesus Christ our Lord, Who esteems these intercessions greatly, even as He lovingly and patiently hears my prayers.)

We celebrate Ste. Jeanne d’Arc’s birthday on January 6. It was, as most accept, in the year 1412. There are some questions and uncertainty about all of this. Not everyone agrees on the date or even on the year. It seems pretty strange to us; in fact, it seems almost implausible in the modern age so revolutionized by technology that we could not know with a high degree of certainty the birthday of the most documented figure in medieval Christendom, indeed, perhaps of all time.

Volumes and volumes of notarized, direct quotations from her inquisition trial are available. Yet, in the ancient days of medieval Europe, birth and baptism records were less well maintained than in our age. This is why a child such as Jeanne would have a multitude of Godparents so that throughout their lives, someone would be around to testify about the matter on their behalf. We should not be too surprised to discover that when asked by her inquisitors in 1431 how old she was, Jeanne answered with something to the effect of “Nineteen, or thereabouts.” Even our child heroine could not state with exactitude her own age. Still, though, whatever the specific data point is, we can be sure of one fact. The history of France, Western Civilization, and the Church would be forever changed by Ste. Jeanne d’Arc after that date of January 6, 1412.

For even the most casual student of European or Church history, the last statement above cannot possibly raise an eyebrow. Even as a young man reared on the high plains of Oklahoma, far away in both time and space from the events surrounding Jeanne d’Arc in Europe, there was at least some vague store of information about her in my head. From where it had come, I do not know.

However, what may be “eyebrow-raising” is that my life on earth also began in the village of Domrémy on January 6, 1412. In time and space, I was born much later, on February 18, 1959. Yet, we know that God conceived our Form in His thoughts from all eternity before the foundation of the world. What remains to be actualized for our Form to drop into the time-space continuum, according to Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, are the efficient and material causes of creation that will meld together by the ordination of the Holy Spirit to create the end, the Final Form, which represents the ultimate meaning of one’s life in the eternal. In other words, with the activation of the efficient and material causes, we begin to become who we are, and being rational creatures with free will, we will know that this is so.

A chair is formed first in the mind of its creator before any visible, physical manifestation comes forth. Once the Form, or non-material concept, is established (“It shall be a cushion type of chair for reading”), the efficient cause is required. A chair does not just spring into existence. Someone must act to bring about its construction, which would be the efficient cause of its creation. Next, the efficient cause will require material, such as wood, foam, and fabric, and these would be the material causes. When completed, the chair has reached its Final Form, sitting elegantly by the fireplace and under the reading lamp, representing its unique purpose in the world.

Well, you may see in your mind now why I say my life on earth began when Jeanne d’Arc was born. She is and was chosen from all eternity in the mind of God to be my chief efficient cause for my journey through time and space toward my final Form, or reason for existence.

Now, generally speaking, and not dismissing the almost infinite variety of specific purposes we represent as individuals, the Final Form of all people is to know and love God and to live with Him forever. Union with God through the one Redeemer of humanity, Jesus Christ, true God, and true man, in the Holy Spirit, is the general Final Form of every person. God, and God alone, is the Alpha and Omega. Yet, Jeanne d’Arc is the person whose life of grace in obedience to Christ our King and Mary our Queen won her the crown of sainthood, who from all eternity was destined in the mind of God to help mold and shape the particular and unique person that I am to be within that general Final Form mentioned above. To make this point, I love quoting her question to the Paladin, a fictional character in Mark Twain’s book who nevertheless resembles me in actuality, as she prepared to grant him a place in her royal, military household:

“I saw you on the road. You began badly but improved. Of old you were a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it out.”

“Will you follow where I lead?” (Twain)

This quotation from Mark Twain's book, though written as a fictional interlude in his generally accurate storyline, inspired me to begin writing in the fall of 2008. Through this writing experience under the friendship and sisterly care of Ste. Jeanne, I understand the meaning of everything I am telling you here and elsewhere in my other books and writings.

I first came across Ste. Jeanne in some physical form when I stood before her statue outside the chapel of Mont Saint-Michel off the coast of Normandy when I was on a High School trip. Much later, through her intercession, I was healed mind, body, and soul on July 17, 2006, the day we celebrate her victorious entry into Rheims to crown Charles VII as the legitimate King of France. She then told me, through the work of Mark Twain, that she would make a man of me with the grace of God and the love of the Holy Virgin. She has been doing just that. Thus, you see her principal role as an efficient critical cause on my journey to the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ looked to her as the efficient cause to save France. He later asked Ste. Jeanne to be an efficient critical relationship who would help make something out of me, a task far more complicated and miraculous than that of saving all of France.

When Ste. Jeanne was born, one of the most prominent efficient causes for my spiritual journey became a physical reality. In some way, then, as she is through this reality part of my very substance through God's will and grace, I also began my earthly journey. Contingent relationships are spectacularly astonishing when viewed through the spirituality of the Catholic Church. God is the master of all the created order, including those contingent relationships. All things come from Him through Jesus Christ and go back to Him through Jesus Christ. In between, the Holy Spirit creates a collage of beautiful relationships that form the magnificent and sacred landscape of mountains, meadows, lakes, and flowers in the Kingdom of God. God created space and time. He is not bound by it. In eternity all things are present to Him. By the power of His mighty arm, the Holy Spirit arcs through time and space to bring us together as a family, a Kingdom, and into the reality of love glorified in our sharing of spiritual blood.

I refer above to Joan being "a key" efficient relational, contingent cause on my journey to freedom and to my purpose or Final Form. There is another efficient critical relationship on my journey for anyone who knows me or reads my writings. That is to whom I refer as my saintly sister Thérèse of Lisieux. The Kingdom of France was saved for the Church through Jeanne d'Arc's victory. Over four hundred years later, the result was the beautiful little French flower we call Thérèse of Lisieux, herself a devotee of Jeanne d'Arc. Thérèse called me out of the Dark Forest of despair to begin my walk on the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed with her and Ste. Jeanne. The Holy Spirit arced through time to plant the seed that was to be Thérèse in the fields of Normandy. Perhaps when I traveled through Normandy and out to the chapel at Mont Saint-Michel, I picked up, not accidentally, in the contingent designs of God, the spiritual pollen that the Holy Spirit would use to arc like fire once again through time to bring forth that same substance, no matter how distorted, and imperfectly it resides in me, that I might myself break forth into the sunlight outside of that Dark Forest where I used to live.

This is why I stated in my vision and mission statement,

"St. Joan and St. Thérèse" together, in that extraordinary kindred spirituality of theirs, have been defined by Our Lord and Our Lady as essential for me on my journey through the majestic, mystical world of the Catholic Church.

St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux are to my spirituality what wet is to water, or light is to the day."

Therefore, I say to you that my life with Ste. Jeanne d'Arc did not begin the day I was born, nor was it even that most grace-filled day to be remembered forever, July 17, 2006. Because of the great mercy of God and His omniscient ordination of contingent relationships in the order of creation, which includes my birth by the Holy Spirit in the spiritual blood of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, that other relationship in spiritual blood with the Maid of Orléans and most honored saint in the heavens, Jeanne d'Arc, began, in the reality of efficient causal relationships, on January 6, 1412.

Or thereabouts.