David and the Zeitgeist

Saint Justin Martyr

c. AD 100 - C. AD 165

Feast Day: June 1

Patronage: philosophers. lecturers, orators, apologists, speakers

Saint Justin Martyr was the son of pagan parents that came to the faith through Platonic intellectual philosophy. He was the first great apologist and his writing today continues to teach and defend the faith. His writings describe the Catholic Mass and the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Justin died after being scourged and then beheaded for refusing to sacrifice to the gods.

Saint Joan of Arc

1412-1431

Feast day: May 30

Patronage: France; martyrs; captives; military personnel; people ridiculed for their piety; prisoners; soldiers

Joan of Arc, national heroine of France, was born in 1412 during the Hundred Years War. At age 12 she began receiving visions of Saint Michael, as well as other angels and saints, telling her to drive out the English. Possessing remarkable mental and physical courage, Joan led the French army to victory over the British at Orleans when she was 18. Several additional victories led to Charles VII’s coronation. Eventually burned at the stake, she held up a cross calling continually upon the name of Jesus. A retrial declared her innocent in 1456 making her a martyr. Joan of Arc was canonized 500 years later.

Jules-Eugène Lenepveu, Joan at the Stake in Rouen (1886-1890)

“‘With great devotion, Joan asked to have the cross, and hearing that, an Englishman who was present there made her a little one in wood from the end of a stick, which he handed her, and she took it devoutly and kissed it, making a pious lamentation to God […].’ Hearing that request, Friar Isambart de la Pierre went to find the nearby church of Saint-Laurent a cross ‘to hold elevated right above her eyes up to the moment of death, so that the cross on which God hung during His life could be continually before her sight.’”

1 Corinthians 15:55-57