Fire, light: but must it come so cruel, so bright?

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Hank Williams was no Catholic.

His lonely backwoods ballads were worlds away from the lonely suffering of a warrior saint.

It's a long, long road from the Alabama woods to the Canadian Jewish poet Leonard Cohen.

The singer song writer who has synthesized Jewish and Catholic traditions.

A poet and songster lights up a Catholic saint as only a Jew can.

For the two traditions are cut from the same cloth: martyrdom.

Let us honor those who sacrifice:

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"But the souls of the upright are in the hands of God, and no torment can touch them.

"To the unenlightened, they appeared to die, their departure was regarded as disaster,

"their leaving us like annihilation; but they are at peace.

"If, as it seemed to us, they suffered punishment, their hope was rich with immortality;

"slight was their correction, great will their blessings be. God was putting them to the test and has proved them worthy to be with him;

"he has tested them like gold in a furnace, and accepted them as a perfect burnt offering.

-The Book of Wisdom, Chapter 3, New Jerusalem Catholic Bible

(often attributed to a Hellenistic Jew, of the 1st or 2nd century BC, Alexandria, Egypt)

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The Song: set against "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928)

"The Messenger," 1999

It is Done: 1928



It is Done: 1999



In the spirit of Jean Anouilh's "The Lark:"
Let Us Honor not only the dying "Bird in Flames" --
but also the soaring "Bird in Flight"

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Joan of Arc Archive
Was Saint Joan Raped?
Saint Joan's Sexuality
Was Saint Joan Mentally Ill?
A More Thorough Discussion of Joan's Visions
George Bernard Shaw: Saint Joan
Jean Anouilh: The Lark

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Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
as she came riding through the dark;
no moon to keep her armour bright,
no man to get her through
this very smoky night.

She said, "I'm tired of the war,
I want the kind of work I had before,
a wedding dress or something white
to wear upon my swollen appetite."

Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way,
you know I've watched you riding every day
and something in me yearns to win
such a cold and lonesome heroine.

"And who are you?" she sternly spoke
to the one beneath the smoke.

"Why, I'm fire," he replied,
"And I love your solitude, I love your pride."

"Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,"
saying this she climbed inside
to be his one, to be his only bride.

And deep into his fiery heart
took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and high above the wedding guests
he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.

It was deep into his fiery heart
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
and then she clearly understood
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.

I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?

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Those Who Came Before

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Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans (French: Jeanne d'Arc, ca. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint.

A peasant girl born in eastern France, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, claiming divine guidance, and was indirectly responsible for the coronation of Charles VII.

She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake when she was nineteen years old.

Twenty-four years later, on the initiative of Charles VII, Pope Callixtus III reviewed the decision of the ecclesiastical court, found her innocent, and declared her a martyr.

She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is, along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux, one of the patron saints of France.

Joan asserted that she had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War.

The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege at Orléans as part of a relief mission.

She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.

--From Wikipedia

With thanks to another Joan:
a friend who knows the meaning
of sacrifice