In the days of Joan of Arc it was the believed that scriptures forbad one from knowing whether one was “in a state of grace.” Thus when one of her accusers asked the saint if, “She was in a state of grace,” he was laying a trap.
Either a yes or no answer would doom the girl to her death.
Mark Twain reports in his classic, Joan of Arc, she answered in this fashion:
“If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so.”
May we all so pray, and to also ask for a little bit of St. Joan’s quick wit.
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