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“Only, when he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside.” (G.K. Chesterton)
No one would have had to tell Ste. Jeanne d'Arc that. Not only did Jeanne know intuitively what Mr. Chesterton proposed with a sense of awe after he converted to the Catholic Church, I truly believe that she could have stated it herself in her own straightforward, simplistic manner. She was pretty clever. She was very bright, and whenever the world presented itself to her, either to attempt to alter her course (which she would not do without extreme reluctance) or to accuse her of wrong-doing (which she would never, ever do), she often had a little verbal bite to offer, and one that probably drew a slight smile from her adversary even as it stung. It was challenging not to like Jeanne d'Arc. You had to be fighting for the English Crown and losing everything before her unstoppable and unyielding faith-filled advances not to like her. Even then, many of those still did like her. And those who really knew her loved her. That is just the nature of Ste. Jeanne d'Arc. That is how God made her, and it is very enlightening.
Speaking of those who loved her and how the Church can be much more spacious inside than out, Ste. Jeanne was often visited as a young woman by saints from Heaven. It is true. It would help if you grasped that truth and its significance to catch the essence of Jeanne. You will not know her as she must be known. You will merely understand her as an enigmatic heroine, and she certainly is that. However, to grasp, to fully grasp, the reality that Heaven visited her often, even daily, from the age of twelve to the time she died at the age of nineteen, is to go so far into the mystery that you actually begin to unwrap and shed light on that enigma. There is light at the end of that journey if only you follow the path with intellectual honesty. St. Michael the Archangel, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. Margaret of Antioch regularly visited Ste. Jeanne. These saints brought messages to her from Jesus Christ. They told her what Jesus Christ's will was regarding France and England's political affairs. They told her what she must do for Jesus Christ: free the city of Orléans from the English siege and bring the Dauphin, Charles VII, to Rheims to be anointed with the oil of Clovis and crowned King of France.