Ferdinand, king (1199–1252)

Biography

This month we bring together two paradigms of the power of the cross: a triumphant and conquering monarch, and the warrior maiden Joan of Arc condemned to death by bishops. The king of Castile and the good Lorraine, medieval saints who wore swords and who in the combats of this world wreaked havoc on the enemy. Both, so different, are the two faces of History as seen by God: the serenity of success and human failure until dying at the stake as a heretic and witch; the fight against infidels and bitter wars between Christians. The sovereign and the shepherdess of Domremy, in nearby, almost neighboring lands. Fernando, who definitively conquered a good part of Andalusia, "not for our merits, but for those of Christ", and Juana who lost herself in sterile and confusing campaigns in which the cowardice and ingratitude of her lord, whom she had crowned, ended up abandoning her. The holy king who sleeps in a sumptuous chapel of the Sevillian cathedral, and the Maid of Orleans who perished in the fire and whose ashes were delivered to the air of France, of which she is today the patron saint. Both, triumph and defeat, human glory and frustration, visible achievement and smoke, greatness and tragedy, guided by a humble and powerful sense of duty. The great king of the Castilians and Leonese, and the illiterate shepherdess who obeyed the voices from above until dying ignominiously in Rouen, are part of the mysterious plans of God, playing two apparently antagonistic roles of holiness that are completed on the back of History, beyond what we see, according to the wisdom of Providence.