Prayer to Saint Joan of Arc
(Pray novena for 9 consecutive days)
Opening prayer:
Eternal Father, you gave us Saint Joan of Arc through your infinite love and mercyfor us. We humbly ask that you send down your Holy Spirit upon us, as Your Spiritis the intermediary by which the Word goes forth from your lips and reaches theears of the faithful. Allow me to be a witness to your Son Jesus Christ just as St.Joan of Arc was. Oh, Jesus, grant me the courage to do your will, that I may be inone accord with our Father in Heaven. I thank you for the gift of your love, which Ihope to one day fully understand.
Petition Prayer:
Say 19 Our Fathers , followed by "St. Joan of Arc, by your powerful intercession,hear and answer me."
When you finish, say the following prayer:
I thank you and ask you for your continuing protection of God's people.
Closing Prayer:
Saint Joan of Arc, patron of France, my patron saint, I ask you now to fight this
battle with me by prayer, just as you led your troops to victory in battle. You, whowere filled with the Holy Spirit and chosen by God, help me this day with the favor Iask (here say your intention). Grant me by your divine and powerful intercession,the courage and strength I need to endure this constant fight. Oh St. Joan, help me
to be victorious in the tasks God presents to me.
Sweet Saint Joan, plead for me before the throne of almighty God that I may be deemed worthy to be granted the request I have asked. Help me, Saint Joan, to bemore like you in the attempt to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind. Through your guidance and prayer help me to be a truly devout and lovingChristian, that I may both know and see the will of God. Help me now St. Joan, inmy time of need. I ask that you may always be near me guiding me closer each dayto Jesus. Thank you Saint Joan for having heard my prayer.
Amen.
Biography from Catholic Online
St. Joan of Arc is the patroness of soldiers and of France. On January 6, 1412, Joan of Arc was born to pious parents of the French peasant class, at the obscure village of Domremy, near the province of Lorraine. At a very early age, she heard voices: those of St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret.
At first the messages were personal and general. Then at last came the crowning order. In May, 1428, her voices "of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret" told Joan to go to the King of France and help him reconquer his kingdom. For at that time the English king was after the throne of France, and the Duke of Burgundy, the chief rival of the French king, was siding with him and gobbling up evermore French territory.
After overcoming opposition from churchmen and courtiers, the seventeen year old girl was given a small army with which she raised the seige of Orleans on May 8, 1429. She then enjoyed a series of spectacular military successes, during which the King was able to enter Rheims and be crowned with her at his side.
In May 1430, as she was attempting to relieve Compiegne, she was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English when Charles and the French did nothing to save her. After months of imprisonment, she was tried at Rouen by a tribunal presided over by the infamous Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who hoped that the English would help him to become archbishop.
Through her unfamiliarity with the technicalities of theology, Joan was trapped into making a few damaging statements. When she refused to retract the assertion that it was the saints of God who had commanded her to do what she had done, she was condemned to death as a heretic, sorceress, and adulteress, and burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. She was nineteen years old. Some thirty years later, she was exonerated of all guilt and she was ultimately canonized in 1920, making official what the people had known for centuries. Her feast day is May 30.
Joan was canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.
The stained glass window of St. Joan of Arc can be seen inside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, located in Dover, New Jeresy, USA.
Photographs Copyright 2009 Loci B. Lenar