I've talked to Saint Augustine
In 1425, English and Burgundian forces drove off all of
Domremy's cattle and burned the town. The same year of this trauma,
when Joan was 13, she started hearing "voices." The first of these
voices spoke to her from her father's garden, and was accompanied
by a blinding white light. Joan claimed that the voices were angels
and saints, through whom God was addressing her. She identified
the saints as Saint Michael, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret,
all crucial French saints of whom Joan had learned through statuary
in the church she attended and through her mother's careful religious
instruction. Although she was initially afraid to speak to other
people about them–she never mentioned them to the Domremy priests even
though she was constantly at confessional–she would claim to talk
to these saints and hear their voices regularly. Joan said they always
spoke in French. Although frightened of them at first, eventually
she came to terms with the voices, even claiming to beckon them
at will. Increasingly, these voices must have become a large part
of the way Joan processed and perceived reality.
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