St. Joan of Arc & St. Thérèse of Lisieux
The Combined Hearts
One fire. Two lives. Joan the warrior and Thérèse the little flower, bound in a single mission: that God may reign in every heart.
I understood that my mission was not to have a mortal king crowned, but to make the King of Heaven loved, to submit to Him the kingdom of hearts.
St. Joan of Arc
1412 – 1431
The Maid who heard Heaven in a field and rode to crown a king. Thérèse called her sister, and asked her to save France a second time.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux
1873 – 1897
The Carmelite who played Joan on a convent stage, wrote her two plays and a canticle, and fought the same war with hidden love.
Why this name
One mission, two hearts
Thérèse never met Joan. Four and a half centuries lie between Domrémy and Lisieux. Yet from childhood she recognized her own vocation in the Maid: a timid virgin given a heart of fire. Joan's battlefield was France. Thérèse's was the kingdom of hearts. The Church would later name them together as co-patronesses of the same country, and Pius XI would call Thérèse a new Joan of Arc.
This shrine gathers their kinship — the plays, the poems, the photographs of a Carmelite dressed as Joan, the letter from a dying nun who still wanted to fight.
Next feast
May 30 and October 1
Joan in May, Thérèse in October — two feasts, one devotion.