St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse's Royaume France

Thérèse came up the hill

To join me as I mused

While looking out and beyond

To the land of Christendom

Over the bridge I had spotted below

Through our love for Sts. Joan and Thérèse, we are brought, by the preceding pedagogical methods, into the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary where we find Jesus Christ, true God and true man, the Second Person of the most Holy Trinity, enthroned in all of His glory as the only Savior of the human race.

Like a magnificent land in the distance, we begin to ever so faintly comprehend the Kingdom's value as we journey. We contemplate it even more deeply through the resonating hues and tones of “the most beautiful color in the heavens,” that is, the combined spiritualities of St. Joan and St. Thérèse, and we are astonished to know that even more than being of great value, this Kingdom holds the very source of life for us.

We now know that our devotion to and relationship with St. Joan and St. Thérèse is no accident, nor is it merely random, subjective emotionalism. There is a reason for this devotion. It has a purpose in the Divine plan for our salvation.

We are now obedient to the guideposts on the path that has, over the centuries before us, so successfully brought a host of saints into the heavenly Kingdom. (Rev 7:9-10) Aided by grace we freely and by choice move along the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed with Sts. Joan and Thérèse under the motherly care of our Queen, the Virgin Mary, (Rev 12:1; Jn 19:26-27) through Faith.

Yet, looking more deeply into the saintly, sisterly influence of St. Joan and St. Thérèse, The Dove and Rose, I see a more sublime methodology at work. Through their care I gain a sense of my true homeland, and I find myself seeking only that end. I want to go home. Having formerly been cast out, I now desire “to return to my own field.”

The reason that I expend so much energy in sharing with the world my love and devotion for St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux – The Dove and Rose – is that I desire to share my love for God, for Mary, and for the Kingdom of Heaven with those two in eternity. I desire with all my heart to worship the Holy Trinity with them forever. I will tell you here why this is so.

Can you grasp the meaning of this? I mean, can you grasp the meaning of angels and saints coming from Heaven to visit St. Joan of Arc? In order to even contemplate it, much less grasp it, one must completely open one’s mind.

“I saw you on the road. You began badly but improved. Of old you were a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it out.”

After which Joan asked him:

“Will you follow where I lead?”[1]

[1] Joan of Arc, Mark Twain, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007. P. 147.

Joan of Arc believed. She had the will to believe and faithfully surrendered the faculty of her intellect in the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5) to Our Lord. Through the cold eyes of the skeptics, I could still see a beautiful light in Joan. However, through the eyes of the Church, looking outwardly in expectant joy toward the Kingdom, I saw Joan’s life burst forth in brilliant colors that ennobled that same Kingdom.

The great day of July 17, 2006 will forever be indelibly branded on my soul. More than that even, it is a day that goes through the outer domain of my soul to touch the very substance of my being. In other words, it was, and remains, a most important day. Just as Thérèse had congruously cooperated with God in bringing about my first grace of conversion, Joan of Arc was intimately involved in my ultimate renewal in the Holy Spirit through sanctifying grace.

I cannot express with enough sincerity how edified I am to be reading through St. Thérèse’s script for her play on the life of Joan of Arc, one of eight plays she wrote on various subject matters. This work exceeds my expectations in that our Little Flower, yet great Doctor of the Church, has interpreted her own life and spirituality in the historical person of Joan. Joan of Arc speaks true to her historical perspective, but we hear Thérèse’s voice.

Welcome to Season 3 of the Royaume France podcast. In these episodes I will take you through “The Dove and Rose” which can be found also in paperback and kindle formats through my Amazon author’s site. This will introduce you to the spirituality behind the Royaume France devotion to St. Joan, St. Thérèse, and French Catholic spirituality. My hope is that these essays will open your hearts and minds to a more dynamic and fulfilling relationship with St. Joan and St. Thérèse, as well as ground you in the earliest philosophical foundations upon which the entire model eventually would be built. I hope you enjoy, “The Dove and Rose”!

“You must be the one from Illinois we were expecting!”

The middle-aged woman behind the desk in the seminary vestibule, just through the door from the couch where I slept for an hour and a half, was cheerful and obviously better rested than I was. The table, which I had not noticed at 5:30am while walking past in a daze, now seemed to be alive with activity and, notably, a person who looked like she could help me. This was the registration desk. Registration was now open. It was 7:00am on July 17, 2006.

“Someone has been leaving a rose each week at the foot of Our Lady’s statue in the chapel.” Mrs. Birdsill smiled and looked warily at me. “We’re not sure who it is.”

That afternoon, I had, in thanksgiving for my total consecration, given one more beautiful red rose to Our Lady, and she, through St. Thérèse, returned a rose to me.

Chapters 3 tells the story of how I was introduced to the rosary and True Devotion to Mary through my wife Josey. Chapter 4 discusses how I was introduced to St. Thérèse of Lisieux as my life long spiritual sister.

The story of how I met St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

Chapters 1 and 2 cover my visit to Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy and my first experience with Catholicism after proposing to my wife.

I have written extensively on the subject of empathic devotion to St. Joan of Arc. Our Lord and Our Lady have transformed my life through this uniquely powerful relationship. The Holy Spirit has willed to provide the sanctifying grace I need in hierarchical fashion, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and then through St. Joan. I have been fascinated for over a decade as to the process and mode of this grace. It feels as though I am called to think it through for whatever mysterious purpose that thinking out, that modeling of the grace, serves the Kingdom of God.

“The sovereign establishment on earth as it is in Heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Kingdom of France bathed in the mystically beautiful light of the combined spirituality of Sts. Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux.”

We must understand our own royal hearts to be first and foremost hearts grounded in sanctifying grace through a dogmatic confession of Catholic faith. Royalty is not a mere earthly political construct. True royalty and a genuine royal heart are born of the Holy Spirit through the Immaculate Heart of Mary…. with Traditional French Catholicism as a guide, we seek a contemplative counterrevolutionary Catholic worldview which will consequently influence through us the restoration of Christendom in social, cultural, and political affairs.”

~ Beyond the Counterrevolution by Walter Adams

The capstone for me, though, has been the one principle I added on my own that gave the model its final presentation and life - syntax. I added syntax after experiencing the most serendipitous (seemingly) encounter with the culture and music of Brittany, France. That experience brought to light the principle of syntax which demonstrated how the model was "ordered" so as to be a complete instantiation of my "primordial dator" experiences in 1984 and 2008. Syntax represents the spirit that orders it to a certain rhythm and mathematical beauty.

That rhythm, mathematical beauty, and divine order is La France Mystique.

In a single moment, a "divine glance," one day in October of 2008,  Our Lord and Our Lady imbued my soul with a preeminent and life-long devotion to St. Joan of Arc. It was a thunderous spiritual moment that struck like a lightening bolt and with the same intensity that Joan displayed in her short life on earth.

Royaume France is a work designed to systematize the subjective spirituality of devotion to St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux through a philosophical methodology. My goal is to share the beautiful spirituality of the combined hearts of St. Joan and St. Thérèse in a manner that would benefit others.