Sunday 30 May 2021    (other days)
The Most Holy Trinity 


Year: B(I). Liturgical Colour: White.

Other saints: Saint Zdzisława of Lemberk OP (c.1220 - 1252)

Lay Dominican and Wife
  She is also known as Zedislava Berkiana.
  Saint Zedislava was born in Moravia around the year 1220. As a wife and mother she provided well for-her own family and was also known as a loving mother of the poor. She received the Dominican habit and together with her husband helped to build up the Order in Bohemia. Renowned for her service to the poor, she died in 1252.

Other saints: St Luke Kirby (c.1549-1582)

30 May (where celebrated)

Other saints: The Yorkshire Martyrs


Other saints: St Joan of Arc (c.1412 - 1431)

Joan was born to a peasant family in Domrémy in what is now Lorraine in eastern France. She herself was not sure of the year in which she was born, but at the time of her trial in 1431 she reckoned herself to be about 19.
  At a time in the Hundred years’ War when the kingdom of France seemed powerless against the duchy of Burgundy to the east and against the kings of England (who, according to the Treaty of Troyes, were now kings of France as well), she received visions of St Michael, St Margaret of Antioch and St Catherine of Alexandria, calling her to save France from foreign occupation. It was to prove the turning-point of the Hundred Years’ War and the saving of the kingdom of France.
  Aged seventeen, Joan embarked on the task of convincing successive great men of France of her mission, until at last she met Charles VII himself, the as yet uncrowned King of France (she refused to call him “king” for that reason). She prophesied the liberation of the besieged city of Orleans, the king’s coronation at Rheims cathedral (where all the kings of France are crowned), and the liberation of Paris. She was sent by the king with a relief convoy to Orleans, where she inspired the French defenders to such good effect that the English gave up the siege. She persuaded Charles to travel to Rheims, in the heart of Burgundian territory, to be crowned King of France. She led an attack on Paris while the king hesitated, to free it from the Burgundians, but the attack failed (Joan herself was wounded) and the king forbade any further attacks. Joan henceforth led her own troops, which conducted minor skirmishes against local Burgundian forces but with little real success.
  Joan went to Compiègne to help it withstand a Burgundian siege, but in a sortie on 23 May 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians. On 21 November 1430 the English bought her from the Burgundians for a substantial sum. They took her to Rouen, where she was imprisoned, and severely interrogated starting in January 1431. Her trial started on 21 February 1431, once enough judges had been found who feared for their lives enough to be likely to give correct verdicts. There was some difficulty in formulating adequate charges, but some seventy of them were eventually found, from leaving her parents’ home without their permission to being in familiar relations with demons. The University of Paris gave its own report: Joan was a schismatic, an apostate, a liar, a sorceress, suspect of heresy, errant in faith, and a blasphemer against God and his saints. Joan appealed to the Pope but the tribunal ignored her appeal. Instead she was orally promised a sentence of incarceration in an ecclesiastical prison if she would abjure her errors, and when she signed the document she was given to sign (with a cross, since she was illiterate), was sent to a secular English prison instead. Having been thus cheated, she withdrew her signature two days later, whereupon she was re-accused, this time on the more serious charge of having relapsed into error, and was condemned to death by burning.
  On 20 May 1431, after having confessed and received communion, Joan was publicly burned in Rouen before high officials including Cardinal Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and his guests. The Cardinal insisted that Joan should be burned three times: the first (in which the fumes rapidly killed her) being followed by a second and a third burning so that no scrap of her should remain for future veneration or sorcery.
  On 15 February 1450, shortly after re-taking Rouen, Charles VII made formal declaration that ‘Joan’s enemies having had her killed cruelly and for no reason’ he demanded an inquiry into the affair. Eventually, in 1455, on the request of Joan’s mother, Pope Calixtus III set in process an inquiry which looked into every detail of the first trial, taking evidence from many eye-witnesses and participants in the process. The final judgement, on 7 July 1456, declared the first trial ‘null, void, without value and without effect’ and completely rehabilitated Joan and her family.
  These two trials make the events of the end of Joan’s life among the best documented in mediaeval history.
  Although she was unjustly killed by the English using the juridical techniques that they would later employ to such effect at the Reformation, Joan is venerated as a virgin rather than a martyr because she did not die for being a Christian. She was finally beatified on 18 April 1909, and canonized on 16 May 1920, being named Secondary Patron of France.

Other saints: Saint Walstan (11th century)

East Anglia
Walstan was probably born in the 11th century at Bawburgh in Norfolk, and spent his life as a farm labourer in Taverham and Costessey, being renowned for his charity to all in need. Although he was probably a pious working man, biographers gave him the rank of prince, claiming that he fled from his royal background to live with ordinary people.
  His shrine at Bawburgh was very popular with the local farm people before it was destroyed during the Reformation. In truth, all that is known about him is his legend, while his cult, albeit local, is undisputed.
East Anglian Ordo


30 May (where celebrated)
Dominican Friar and Priest.


Second Reading: Saint Athanasius (295 - 373)


Liturgical colour: white




Afternoon reading (None)Apocalypse 7:12 ©