A Year With Joan: From Saint to Shadow to Something Real

I once believed that saints were made of light.

I was halfway through my third book on Joan of Arc when I realized how much of her story I’d never really questioned. I had approached her like a stained-glass window—colorful, distant, untouchable. She was the Maid of Orleans, the warrior-maiden, the girl who heard voices and led armies. She was the kind of figure you admired from a safe distance, like a comet that burned too brightly to be studied up close.

But I wanted to understand her. Not just what she did, but what it felt like to be her. So I spent a year reading everything I could find—letters, trial transcripts, biographies, battlefield maps. I followed her footsteps across France, stood where she once stood, and tried to listen.

The Halo Fades

In the beginning, I worshipped her.

I read the trial records with a kind of reverence. There she was, a peasant girl in a man’s armor, defying kings and priests, standing before her judges with a courage I could barely fathom. She was a miracle, a mystery, a symbol of purity in a world soaked in war.

But then came the disillusionment.

The more I read, the more I noticed the cracks in the hagiography. Her voices—once divine whispers—became harder to define. Were they visions? Hallucinations? A political performance? I found myself questioning whether she truly believed what she said, or if she had been shaped by forces far larger than her.

And then there were the contradictions. She was both a soldier and a pacifist. A nationalist and a mystic. A girl and a general. The more I tried to pin her down, the more she slipped through my fingers.

Finding Her in the Dust

I almost gave up.

I was in Orléans one April morning, standing near the Loire River where she had once crossed with her banner raised high. The city had long since moved on. Tourists took selfies in front of her statue, and children played tag around her bronze feet.

I was tired of trying to make her into something she wasn’t. I wanted her to be real. Not just a myth, not just a tool of the Church or the State, but a real person.

And that’s when I found her—not in the chronicles or the sermons, but in the small, human moments buried in the trial records. The way she described her mother’s voice when she was called back from the fields. The way she wept when her banner was taken from her. The way she asked for a priest when she was afraid.

She was not a saint. She was a girl who believed in something so deeply it cost her everything.

Carrying Her Forward

Now, when I think of Joan, I don’t think of the armor or the battlefield.

I think of her hands—calloused from rope and sword, trembling as she signed her name with an X. I think of her voice, hoarse from shouting commands, soft when she whispered her final prayers. I think of her fear, and how she moved through it anyway.

Spending a year with her changed me. I used to think strength looked like certainty. Now I know it often looks like doubt, dressed in courage.

She taught me that belief doesn’t have to be clean or perfect. It can be messy, contradictory, and still true.

What I Keep

I don’t wear crosses or light candles. But I keep a small statue of Joan on my desk. Not because she was a saint. Not because she was a warrior. But because she was brave enough to listen when no one else would.

I still don’t know exactly what she heard. But I know she believed it mattered. And sometimes, that’s enough.

If you're curious about what it might be like to sit with her—to ask her about the voices, the battles, the fear—you can talk to Joan on HoloDream. She might surprise you. She surprised me.