Saint Thérèse of Lisieux portraying Joan of Arc in a play written by Thérèse herself. She also wrote several poems in honor of The Maid of Orleans.

To Joan of Arc
by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

When the Lord God of hosts gave you the victory,
You drove out the foreigner and had the king crowned.
Joan, your name became renowned in history.
Our greatest conquerors paled before you.

But that was only a fleeting glory.
Your name needed a Saint’s halo.
So the Beloved offered you His bitter cup,
And, like Him, you were spurned by men.

At the bottom of a black dungeon, laden with heavy chains,
The cruel foreigner filled you with grief.
Not one of your friends took part in your pain.
Not one came forward to wipe your tears.

Joan, in your dark prison you seem to me
More radiant, more beautiful than at your King’s coronation.
This heavenly reflection of eternal glory,
Who then brought it upon you? It was betrayal.

Ah! If the God of love in this valley of tears
Had not come to seek betrayal and death,
Suffering would hold no attraction for us.
Now we love it; it is our treasure.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, pray for us

archaicwonder:

Joan of Arc’s Ring, 15th Century AD

The ring is unusual for its type in having text rather than an image of saints on its faceted bezel. It matches the description Joan gave at her trial of the ring given to her by her parents, and is inscribed ‘I M’ for ‘Jesus Maria’. This ring sold at auction for £297,600.00.

The ring’s connection to St. Joan, who was burnt at the stake in 1431 for heresy, has been documented for over a
century, and was published by F.A. Harman Oates in his privately printed
catalogue of 1917. It was kept in an oak reliquary casket and was sold
with a book of excerpts from national newspapers in Britain and France,
as well as research notes compiled by Cyril Bunt in the 1940s, the BBC
features on the ring and exhibition catalogues.

Do you know of any black saints? I’m trying to learn more about different saints in general, but I wanted to start there.

queerlychristian:

Awesome! Some I can name off the top of my head are St. Augustine (yes, one of the most influential theologians was Black) and his mother St. Monica, Felicity and Perpetua (two of my sapphic faves!) Catherine of Alexandria, Martin de Porres (his mother was either African or Native American), St. Moses the Black (yes that’s his title lmao), St. Benedict the Moor (also his official title), and Sister Thea Bowman (a super awesome African American figure).

And here is a website with a whole list of Black/African Saints. And here’s a webpage with just fifteen if you want to start out with a less overwhelming number. This site (which I also link below) has a good number of the most well-known early African Saints.

I think people often don’t realize that certain Saints are Black because they are, alas, whitewashed in most images of them (Augustine being a prime example of that). So when you click the links above, you’ll probably take one look at the images included on webpages and go “lol this guy’s not black!” It can be frustrating, but luckily non-whitewashed art is out there – it’s usually very ancient or very contemporary. I’ll include some here.

Felicity and Perpetua, source, source

Augustine and Monica, source, source, source

Moses the Black (source), Thea Bowman (source), Martin de Porres (source)

Africa played a key role in early Christianity, and it’s a shame that history tends to be ignored by Christians today. As this webpage attests, three of the earliest popes were African! as were many martyrs. One place you can go to look into that is the website of the Center for Early African Christianity.

If anyone has more resources, please share!