Vision Saints Series Part 1

The Vision book series is a series of short biographies of Catholic saints and holy men and women. They were written for children, aged nine to twelve, and published in the 1950's. Because each book is written by a different author, the quality and style of writing varies. Some books are about well known saints like Thomas Aquinas or St. Theresa of Lisieux, while others are about lesser known saints such as Mother Cabrini and Father Damien. With the passage of time some of the books about men and women who led exemplary lives are dated in terms of the person's status in the church. For example, Father Damien de Veuster's cause is now complete and he is a saint whose feast day is May 10th.

Saint Pius X: The Farm Boy Who Became Pope by Walter Diethelm, tells the story of Guiseppe Sarto who became Pope Pius X. Bepi as he was affectionately known, was a poor farm boy who grew up in the village of Riese. This account stresses Bepi's life of holy poverty. As a priest, bishop, cardinal and even as the archbishop of Venice, Sarto gave away everything he had to help the poor.

Guiseppi Sarto was not just concerned about the material needs of people but also about their spiritual needs. While the spiritual director of the seminary in Treviso, Father Sarto diligently instructed his seminarians, leading them in prayer and doing all he could to ensure they would become faithful priests.

As Pope Pius X, he continued his support of the poor, giving away vast sums of money to support orphans and to help educate children. Pius X is most noted for changing the rules regarding the reception of Holy Communion for children. Before his pontificate, children did not make their First Holy Communion until they were eleven or twelve years of age. He was responsible for changing the rules to allow children as young as seven to receive the sacrament as long as they understood what the sacrament involved. Pius X was deeply distraught over World War I which was just beginning in 1914. He died before the war grew to involve most countries in Europe, desolate at the thought that so many would loose their lives.

In St. Helena and the True Cross, Catholic author Louis de Wohl traces Helena's transformation from the ambitious pagan wife of Legate Constantius to the devote Christian mother of her son, Emperor Constantine. Helena is believed to have been a royal princess of the Trinovants and the daughter of King Coel.

The story begins with Legate Constantius tricked into leaving his command in the province of Southern Britain to travel to Rome. Believing the request to come from the new emperor, Maximian, Constantius arrives in Rome to learn this was not the case. His two month journey has allowed a rebellion  led  Carausius and his Roman soldiers to succeed.

Back in Britain, Helena and her thirteen-year-old son Constantine flee north along with Centurion Marcus Favonius to escape the troops of Admiral Carausius who quickly takes control of the province of Britain.

Seven years later, Constantine, now twenty-years-old and his mother Helena are living in hiding in Verulam and still waiting for Rome to reclaim Britain. Carausius has been murdered and replaced by the traitorous Allectus. Then suddenly news arrives that Rome has returned to reclaim Britain. From a stolen report Helena learns that Constantius is leading a large force that has already reclaimed certain areas. She decides to return to their villa in the south.

However, things are not what Helena and Constantine expect. Helena and Constantine learn from Constantius's aide-de-camp, Legate Curio, that Constantius is now emperor over the West (Occident) while Galerius rules over the Orient (the East). Both Diocletian and Maximian ordered Constantius and Galerius to divorce their wives and remarry. Constantius is now married to Emperor Maximian's daughter, Princess Theodora.

A devastated Helena, returns to their house in Verulam with Constantine and Favonius. It is during this period of suffering over the abandonment by her husband that Helena first learns of the Christian faith through a slave. Out of curiosity she decides to see Albanus, a Christian priest who explains the beginnings of the faith to her. Although skeptical at first, Helena eventually comes to respect the Christians and advocate for them when they are persecuted. She begins to find the cruelty of the Romans towards slaves and Christians offensive.

When her son, Constantine eventually becomes Emperor, defeating Maxentius and capturing Rome, Christianity is made the state religion and the old Roman gods are abolished.  Through a series of visions, Constantine comes to believe that the God of the Christians is on his side. Soon after, Helena becomes a Christian. But the ambitious Helena, now elderly woman, is determined to find the one true cross of Christ. To that end, she travels to the Holy city of Jerusalem and begins her search.

In De Wohl's novel, Helena is portrayed as a dynamic character, regal, ambitious and open minded. Her suffering as a result of the abandonment of herself and her son by her husband Constantius opens her to the possibilities offered by the Christian faith. But Helena's conversion is gradual and takes place over many years.

Helena's discovery of the Christ's Holy Cross is also portrayed in this novel. Tradition holds that St. Helena discovered the true cross during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 326 A.D. Christians, now free to practice their religion were able to travel to the Holy Land and Helena undertook this journey with the intent of finding these holy relics. Helena traveled to Mount Calvary where she found a temple to the goddess Venus built by the pagan Romans to prevent Christians from worshipping at the place of Christ's crucifixion. Helen was able to locate three crosses as well as nails and the inscription placed on Jesus's cross. She was able to determine the true cross by having a very ill woman in Jerusalem touch all three crosses. Only one cross, the true cross healed her. In de Wohl's novel, a young boy is cured of a withered arm.

In Father Damien And The Bells, authors Arthur and Elizabeth Sheehan have written an engaging account of Damien de Veuster's journey to sainthood. Damien, who was born Joseph de Veuster, grew up in Tremelo, in Flanders, Belgium. His father was a farmer. Joseph or Jef as he was called, was the youngest in the family and was responsible for tending the sheep.

August and Jef loved to hear their mother read stories from The Lives of the Holy Martyrs and Hermits. After four years of study at the Werchter village school Joseph stayed home to help his father on the family farm. He was a strong young man who loved physical labour. However his father, Francis de Veuster worried about Joseph and believed that he was different and destined for something else. So he arranged for his son to attend the academy in Braine-le-Comte, located in Hainault, southern Belgium so that Joseph could learn French. After that he would learn the grain business to help the family farm.

Meanwhile Joseph's brother Auguste entered the seminary of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts, taking the name Pamphile.

At Braine-le-Comte, Joseph soon endeared himself to his classmates. But he was a deeply spiritual young man, often spending his nights in prayer. He was beginning to feel the call to a priestly vocation. At this time his sister Pauline entered the Ursiline Sisters in Holland. When his letter to his parents suggesting his vocation was not immediately answered, Joseph mentioned his intentions to Pamphile during one of his visits. His brother suggested he join the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts and eventually that is what came to happen. Upon his entry he took the name of Damien.

In the seminary of the Picpus Fathers in Louvain, Damien's unusual physical strength and good health did not go unnoticed. He practiced many denials, often sleeping on the floor and giving up his portion of meat at meals. In July of 1863, Pamphile learned he was to sail to the missions in Honolulu, Hawaii in October. But it was not to be. Pamphile became ill in October, during the typhus epidemic of 1863 and was unable to travel. Determined to take his brother's place, Damien wrote the Father General asking permission to travel to Hawaii. His request was granted.

This was to set Damien on the path as a missionary in Hawaii and ultimately his life's work with the lepers on Molokai. Father Damien's love of hard work, his unusual physical strength and his compassion for those suffering from what was in his time an incurable disease were to mark his ministry.

Discussion

Overall the quality of these three Vision novels is good. Each writer succeeds in giving readers a sense of what life was like in the time the saint lived. Each book manages to identify for young readers,  the virtues that these holy men and women practiced, and which ultimately led them to lead sainthood.

In the case of St. Pius X, it was his practice of prayer and poverty at an early age that set him on the path to sainthood. He routinely gave everything away he had, including his money, food and even his coat. St. Helena, is remembered for  her work for the church and for the poor and for her determination to find the relics of Christ's crucifixion. In the case of St. Damien, young readers will get a definite sense of how the practice of the Catholic faith was a part of daily life for Dutch Catholics. This holy family produced four religious vocations: his older sisters Pauline and Eugenie became nuns and his older brother Augustus became a priest.

For all three saints the path to holiness took a lifetime. For St. Pius X and St. Damien their faith was nurtured within the family where it was taken seriously and a part of everyday life. For St. Helena her conversion occurred gradually over the course of her life, nurtured by the example of the Christian community. De Wohl suggests that the kindness of Christians towards her situation led Helena to consider the faith, as her gods offered her nothing. She was resistant to conversion because as a Roman citizen she struggled with the manner of Christ's death - his crucifixion. "How could she believe in a God who allowed himself to be crucified, who died the most shameful death, hanging between two criminals?" For Helena, the cross was a barrier to her conversion. Albanus tells her that the cross is the obstacle to most Christians but that unlike the pagan gods, the Christian God has suffered both with us and for us. In de Wohl's account, it is her discussion with Albanus, who relates how trees are central to many pagan religions, that plants within Helena the seed of a desire to find the true cross.

Helena was a woman who did nothing by halves. From Butler's Lives of the Saints we read, "It appears from Eusebius, that St. Helen was not converted to the faith with her son, till after his miraculous victory; but so perfect was her conversion, that she embraced all the heroic practices of Christian perfection, especially the virtues of piety and almsdeeds...."

Many of the Vision books have been republished by Ignatius Press in the last 20 years with refreshed covers that are appealing to modern readers. Excellent for children and teens interested in learning more about specific saints. Suitable also for adults.

Book Details:

St. Pius X: The Farm Boy Who Became Pope by Walter Diethelm, O.S.B.
San Francisco: Ignatius Press   1994
163 pp.

St. Helena and the True Cross by Louis de Wohl
San Francisco: Ignatius Press   2012
158 pp.

Father Damien and the Bells by Arthur and Elizabeth Sheehan
San Francisco: Ignatius Press    2004
168 pp.

The Language of Fire by Stephanie Hemphill

The Language of Fire is another retelling of the story of St. Joan of Arc, the Catholic teenager from the village of Domremy, who turned the tide in the Hundred Years War, saving France from English occupation.

Born in 1412 in Domremy, to Jacques and Isabelle D'Arc, peasant farmers,  Joan was the youngest in her family that included three brothers and a sister. Joan excelled at spinning and sewing and it was her nature to be prayerful, to help in all the family chores, and to care for the poor. She was known to frequent the parish church and to pray. When she was thirteen-years-old Joan, became aware of a voice accompanied by a flash of light that spoke to her. In her vision, she saw St. Michael the Archangel who bid her to be a good girl and who told her that St. Catherine and St. Margaret would soon come to her. When the two saints first appeared to her, they were gentle in their request that she go see the dauphin and that she secure an army from him to lift the siege at Orleans. These initial visions happened in 1425 and continued for the next three years, growing more insistent.

With great reluctance, Joan began to speak of her visions, so that she could act on them and begin her mission to save France. In 1428, when Joan was seventeen, she was pressed to marry, receiving an offer from a suitor whom her parents encouraged. However, Joan knew she would never be able to carry out her mission if this were to happen, so she refused the man who offered marriage. She even had to travel to the ecclesiastical court in Toul where she won her case. 

By this time, the French had laid siege to Orleans. If Orleans was lost, France would fall to the English. Joan's voices insisted that she must save Orleans. The second part of her mission was to take the heir to the French crown, Charles VII to the city of Rheims to be crowned. This would mean clearing the way to Rheims and removing the English from the city. To accomplish all this, she was to start by meeting with Robert de Baudricourt. Her voices now insistent, Joan knew she had to act. So began her mission which would ultimately succeed, but lead her to martyrdom.

Discussion

The Language of Fire is a novel of historical fiction written in free verse. Hemphill, who admits to having been fascinated with St Joan of Arc since her fourth grade catechism class, has done a stellar job in capturing the story of Joan of Arc and her remarkable mission. Impressed with Joan's belief in herself, in her God-given mission, and her ability to rise above her station, Hemphill was motivated to write her story.

The novel begins with the author portraying Joan in a decidedly modern feminist manner as she questions her friend Mengette about what she wishes for her life, 
"Did you ever wish
to be something
besides a wife and mother?"
Formed exclusively by her Catholic faith, Joan would have been intent on living a holy life and discovering and doing the will of God, something modern teens would likely consider. Hemphill admits that she took creative license with the young Joan, since little is known about her early youth. But in some ways, portraying a historical figure with modern attitudes does no favours to today's readers, who are led to believe that young people everywhere have always thought as they do today. As the novel progresses, Joan loses this feminist perspective and her character feels more true to the Joan we know from history.

To make Joan seem more realistic and relatable, Hemphill "created an internal struggle for Joan throughout her journey."  She wanted to present Joan as a person "of flesh and blood" instead of just the "largely pious and brave warrior." For Joan, that struggle was to reconcile her mission from God with her place in society as a young woman with few rights. She knew God was calling her to a soldier's mission to save France, yet she was baffled as to how to accomplish this given this reality. She kept her mission a secret for several years, until the voices became threatening. Even her "voices" instructions to travel to meet Robert of Baudricourt, initially seemed impossible to her.

Hemphill portrays Joan of Arc as in awe of what God has done through her,
"...for I am a seventeen-year-old girl
who now leads thousands of men.

It seems beyond impossible,
yet because of Him 
I am."

as confident and in charge,
"Because I need answer to no one,
except God and the dauphin."

full of faith and virtue,
"I explain with a smile,
'All who follow me into battle,
I must be assured
I will see again in heaven.' "

Hemphill simplified one aspect of Joan's story; the voices who direct her. Joan of Arc indicated that she had visions and heard the voices of St. Michael the Archangel, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Instead, the author merged their voices into one voice, the voice of God, "...not only for ease of reading and comprehension, but more importantly because although in the fifteenth century hearing the voices of saints was not hard for people to imagine, modern readers do not in large part pray to saints." But many, as Hemphill notes in her Author's Note, do pray to God.

The Language of Fire captures the complexity of Joan's mission, the physical, political and social obstacles she had to overcome, the utter depravity of her imprisonment, the corrupted trial she endured and the horror of being burned alive at the stake, her naked corpse raised up and burned, her ashes thrown into the Seine. This barbarism is hard to comprehend in what was Catholic society at the time. It demonstrates how both English leaders and the Catholic hierarchy at the time were working for their own interests, to the point of martyring a young woman.

The theme of fire can be found throughout the novel, foreshadowing Joan's martyrdom. It is a foreshadowing of the gruesome, brutal end Joan experiences at the hands of the English. The novel begins with Joan burning at the stake in 1431, expecting the fire to speak. Throughout her young life Joan has experienced dreams involving fire. It is always the same dream, Joan trapped in the rafters of her father's barn, the fire lit by English soldiers. Told by her voices that she will die young, Joan comes to suspect that she will "face a deadly fate somewhere beyond these victories." The dreams of fire haunt her in prison and to the very end when her fate is sealed.

It's evident from this retelling that Hemphill undertook considerable research into Joan's life. In fact, the author travelled to France, visiting the city of Rouen and walked its narrow streets as well as the courtroom where she was tried. Hemphill also read numerous biographies and consulted the trial transcripts.

If you read any fiction novel about Joan of Arc this year, The Language of Fire is highly recommended. Well written, true to Joan's life and filled with plenty of interesting details, it is a captivating account of Joan of Arc's heroic life.

Image credit: https://www.jeanne-darc.info/biography/visions/

Book Details:

The Language of Fire by Stephanie Hemphill
New York: Balzer and Bray       2019
492 pp.

Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott

Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc tells the story of this famous girl-warrior saint who ultimately saved France from English occupation in the 15th century.

Told in verse from multiple perspectives, the novel opens with Joan about to be burned at the stake.
In the very first poem, Joan sets the stage.
"...My name is
Joan, but I am called the Maid. My
hands are bound behind me. The fire
beneath me laid."

As she awaits her fate at the stake, Joan thinks back on all the events that have led her to this moment.
"Every life is its own story--
not without a share of glory,
and  not without a share of grief.
I lived like a hero at seventeen.
At nineteen, I die like a thief."

Born in Lorraine in the Duchy of Bar, Joan lives in Domremy with her sister, two brothers, her parents and uncles and aunt.  Her parents, who are peasants work the land for a living and work hard. Her mother Isabelle in a poem of the same title states that she did her duty teaching Joan to churn, bake, plant and spin and that Joan did these all better than any girl in the village. Yet, Joan seemed unsettled.
"...Yet her mind
was elsewhere, settled on another need,
a need she could not share with her mother
or any other woman."
Although Joan tried her best to do what was asked of her, she was "possessed by a ruthless and persistent urge...".

At this time France was involved in a bitter civil war, Queen Isabeau had signed a treaty with the city of Troyes and betrayed her own son. King Henry, King of England  would now be King of France and not Charles VII. Joan considers Charles her king and not Henry. Henry had captured Paris and laid seige to Orleans. The dauphin fled south to Loire and established his court in Loire. While Joan's brothers went to war, she sat at home in her homespun red dress and sewed.

Then one morning, Joan's world changed drastically. While thinning seedlings, at age thirteen, she experiences a vision of St. Michael the Archangel telling her to be good. After this the archangel frequently appears along with St. Margaret and St. Catherine.  For the next three years Joan faithfully did her chores at home, but she knew that she had to leave
"Domremy for the nearby town
 Vaucouleurs, where Robert de 
Baudricourt, my voices said, would
get me to Chinon and the unanointed
king. I left my family, my
friends, everything I had loved or
known. ..."  
Joan's mission to turn the tide in the Hundred Years war and begin to drive the English from France had begun. As she thinks back on her part in the war, the fire at the stake begins to rise and consume her.

Discussion

Voices is an imaginative and sometimes odd retelling of the story of St. Joan of Arc. Elliot, an award-winning author, uses metered and rhyming verse to express the voices of several people central to the story including Joan, her father Jacques d'Arc, her mother Isabelle,St. Michael, Robert De Baudricourt, Saint Catherine, Charles VII, Saint Margaret, and Bishop Pierre Cauchon.

As with Allan Wolf's The Watch That Ends The Night, a novel that tells the Titanic sinking in verse using the voices of inanimate objects, Elliott too includes the "voices" of inanimate objects as well as other unusual things. For example there are poems from Joan's sewing needle, the candle, the fairy tree of her childhood, alms, her father's cattle, her sword, Joan's red dress, the tunic she replaced it with,  Joan's hair, her armor, her warhorse and the fire that consumes her at the end. Other poems are by Silence, Virginity, The Road to Vaucouleurs, Lust, the Altar at Sainte Catherine de Fierbois, the Castle at Chinon, the sword at Fierbois, and so forth.

Elliott runs amok with the number of voices he includes, each "voice" telling its part in Joan's story. Joan's armor insists it did its "...very best to shield her from the pain of injury..." while the crossbow boasts "...I struck and laid her flat. She could not walk. She could not ride. I made sure of that." and later on "I am a master at my art". The sword at Fierbois wonders how Joan knew where it lay. In this well crafted poem the sword tells its past. "I've had my fill of human strife; I've had my taste of human blood. No more the bow, the lance, the knife....Who told the girl I rested here? How could she have known?" The stake opines that it is Joan's "...best and only friend, her stalwart intimate. On me she's learned she can depend."

Elliott decided to write his poems in forms such as villanelles and sestinas that were popular during Joan's lifetime. He also included forms that were developed a bit later. Some of the poems are calligrams, or shape poems, including "The Sword At Fierbois", "The Stake" and "The Crossbow". Elliott explains these poems at the back of the novel. Many of the poems are delightful in their rhyming and expressiveness. Others, particularly those of the saints are bizarre. Both Saint Michael and Saint Catherine question the belief of people in them, while Saint Margaret urges Joan to put her faith in the constancy of fire.  Nevertheless, Elliott manages to convey Joan's story to his readers and capture the girl soldier-saint's determination, urgency and courage to carry out the will of God for her king and country.

Interspersed with Elliot's poetry are quotes taken from Joan's Trial of Condemnation which resulted in her being burned at the stake as a heretic and the Trial of Nullification that occurred some twenty-four years after her martyrdom which absolved her. She was eventually canonized in 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.

Elliott does offer his readers a lovely map of France as it existed during Joan's lifetime, but no historical background to his novel. The conflict Joan fought in came to be called the Hundred Years War.  This war began in 1337 when King Edward III of England fought King Philip VI over land in France. The land had been claimed by English kings who ruled after the French William the Conqueror's reign in England. The English were at first successful but with the Black Death raging in England and a series of defeats, their luck changed. However, in 1413, the tide had turned in favour of the English who were now ruled by Henry V. He won the Battle of Agincourt as well as other battles and with the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, his heirs were to be the successors to the French crown. Henry V married Catherine of Valois, the daughter of the French king. He also established a military alliance with Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, controlling much of northern France. With Henry's untimely death, his son Henry VI continued to fight for control of the north of France.

Joan of Arc was born in 1412, in Domremy a village that lay within the lands controlled by the Burgundians. However, the people of Domremy were faithful to the king of France. Joan was described later as a pious child who spent some time in prayer in church. When she was thirteen, in 1425, she began to experience what she later called her "voices". Joan was also able to discern in some way that they were St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. These saints gradually made her aware of God's mission for her, to help the king of France. She was to go to Robert Baudricourt in Vaucouleurs. This Joan did in 1428 and again in 1429. Her prediction of the English defeat in the Battle of the Herrings convinced a skeptical Baudricourt, and Joan was sent to meet the king in the town of Chinon. To protect herself, Joan wore men's clothing.

Despite the king disguising himself, Joan immediately recognized him and after an intensive examination by court theologians and bishops at Poitiers, was approved to be involved in France's army. At Chinon, Joan refused the sword made for her, instead instructing that a search be made for an ancient sword, which she stated would be found buried beneath the alter of Ste. Catherine de Fierbois. According to a historical document,a letter by Sire de Rotslaer which was written on April 22, 1429, and which has been preserved, Joan predicted that she would raise the siege of Orleans, that in the battle for Orleans she would be wounded and that the king would be crowned at Reims.

All this came to pass: on May 8th the siege was raised, Joan was wounded in the breast by an arrow, and King Charles was crowned on July 17, 1429. With her mission now complete Joan wished to return home but was kept in the army against her will. Joan was wounded again in a failed assault on Paris, where she was shot in the thigh. In an attack on Compiegne, Joan was captured by the Burgundian forces that were attacking the town and held by John of Luxembourg who sold her to the English.

Joan was left to her fate by an ungrateful and apathetic King Charles VII. The English, also Catholic at this time, were as the Catholic Encyclopedia expresses so well, " feared their prisoner with a superstitious terror, partly because they were ashamed of the dread which she inspired, were determined at all costs to take her life. They could not put her to death for having beaten them, but they could get her sentenced as a witch and a heretic." And this too came to pass. Denied legal counsel and held in the secular prison - the Castle of Rouen where she was molested when dressed in women's clothing, Joan confounded her interrogators - theologians from the University of Paris. She was convicted of being a heretic for dressing as a man and for her "voices". Joan did recant once but her voices returned to chastise her, that this was displeasing to God and encouraging her to remain faithful. This was all Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais needed.  Joan was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431, her ashes dumped into the Seine River.

Joan had prophesied during her trial that within seven years the English would lose a bigger prize than Orleans. In 1437, Henry VI was defeated at Paris. The French eventually reclaimed their country from the English who had to deal with civil war which came to be known as the War of the Roses.

Overall, Elliott's Voices is a good starting point for those interested in this popular French saint and her unconventional life. The beautiful cover is also sure to attract teen readers.

Book Details:

Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliot
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company     2019
194 pp.