Fina, short for Josephine (p.135, l.28, Harper Perennial ed.), acts as a patron saint for the Playboys. "It came out then that Fina was spiritual leader or Den Mother of this youth gang. She had learned in school about a saint, called Joan of Arc, who went around doing the same thing for armies who were more or less chicken and no good in a rumble. The Playboys, Angel felt were pretty much the same way" (p.137, l.27-31). Further, Pynchon calls her "St. Fina of the Playboys" (p.143, l.32). The following passages are from Omer Englebert's The Lives of the Saints (David McKay and Company, Inc., New York 1951).
St. Joan of Arc (d. 11431)
May 30. Born at Greux-Domremy, about 1412, to Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle RomÚe, Joan had one sister and three brothers. From the age of thirteen she heard voices: those of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret. France was then, to a large extent, in the power of the English who were in alliance with the Burgundians. In May 1428 her voices told Joan to go and find the king of France and to help him reconquer his kingdom. Her military adventure lasted fifteen months, from February 23rd, 1429, when she left Vaucouleurs, until May 23rd, 1430, when she was captured by the Burgundians at Compi¶gne. The twelve months which followed were those of her Calvary.
The principal dates of her glorious career are the following: March 6th, 1429, Joan was at Chinon, where she saw the dauphin; March 28th, theologians examined her at Poitiers; April 22nd, she left Blois to march upon Orleans, which the English abandoned on May 8th; on June 10th, she left for Jargeau, freed Tours, Loches, Beaugency, Patay; arrived at Auxerre July 1st; entered Troyes July 10th; was present at the king's coronation at Rheims July 17th; took Soissons July 22nd; then successively Chateau-Thierry, Coulommiers, Crecy, Provins; made her entry into Saint-Denis August 26th; was ennobled by the king, December 29th.
On July 14th, 1430, Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, claimed her prisoner in the name of the king of England as having been captured in his diocese. The duke of Burgundy delivered her to him for 10,000 gold francs. She was taken to Rouen, where, in obedience to England, Cauchon and about forty priests, clerks, canons, and monks condemned her to the stake. She was burned alive as a heretic and traitor, May 24th, 1431. Twenty-five years later, at the request of her mother and brothers, her trial was reviewed and she was cleared. Her beatification took place in 1909, and her canonization in 1920.