The Philosophical Foundations of Le Royaume
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The Philosophical Foundations of Le Royaume
Process Part One: Willingness to “Be Bested” by Joan of Arc.
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“Philosophical understanding is different. The philosopher must not only be able to see and show the fact that someone else went about it in such and such a way; his insight must not only extend to the connections between the other's grounds and consequences. The philosopher must also grasp why his predecessor went about it like this. He must get down into the grounds themselves and grasp them. And this means that the grounds must grip him and best him in the sense that he decides to accept them and retraces within himself the path the other followed from grounds to conclusions, perhaps even going beyond him. Or else he must best the grounds; I mean, he must decide to get free of them and take another path.”
~ Edith Stein. Potency and Act (The Collected Works of Edith Stein) (Kindle Locations 425-429). Kindle Edition.
Our devotion to St. Joan of Arc, in the Phenomenological realm of Le Royaume, begins with an encounter. There is a moment, predestined by God when we come to know Joan through the heart of St. Thérèse. This moment becomes like a raised pole in our spiritual life around which Our Lord and Our Lady construct the Kingdom Blessed of St. Joan and St. Thérèse. This encounter is itself a phenomenon and is given to us only by grace working through the merits of Joan of Arc in an overflow of blessings, like a fountain overflows with water.
This overflow of grace is designed in the schema of the divine order. Just as a beautiful fountain overflowing in its proper place creates natural beauty in the material realm, so does the will of Jesus Christ with Our Lady create supernatural beauty through the combined hearts of Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux in our souls. We immediately sense that these are life-giving waters flowing over and around us.
Part One begins and ends with our willingness to accept God’s blessings in our Thérèsian encounter with Joan. Our willingness makes us, consciously or not, ready to “be bested” by her heart, intellect, and point of view for the glory of God and the reign of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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Check out the Heroic Hearts podcast on Substack, Spotify, or Apple. Heroic Hearts is a podcast about healing, enchanting, and elevating our hearts through the stories and spirituality of St. Joan of Arc and St. Therese of Lisieux. Co-hosted with Amy Chase.