⛪ Saint Germaine Cousin

⛪ Saint of the Day: June 15

⛪ Born: 1579 at Pibrac, France

⛪Died: • 1601 in her parent's  home in Pibrac, France, apparently  • Relics interred in the church at Pibrac

⛪ Canonized: 29 June 1867 by Pope Blessed Pius IX

⛪Patronage: • Abandoned or neglected people • Abuse victims, child abuse victims • Against bodily ills, illness, sickness; sick people • Against impoverishment, poverty; poor people • Disabled, handicapped or physically challenged people • Girls from rural areas; peasant girls; country girls • Against the loss of parents • Shepherdesses • Unattractive people

⛪ Representation: • Girl with a distaff (it's used in spinning thread) • Girl with a sheep • Girl with a shepherd's crook • Girl with a watchdog • Girl with flowers in her apron • Peasant girl dying alone in poverty • Peasant girl tending sheep • Peasant girl with flowers falling around her in winter

Saint Germaine Cousin was born in 1579 in Pibrac, a small village near Toulouse, France. From her earliest years, she was frail and sickly, afflicted with scrofula, a tubercular condition affecting the glands of the neck. Additionally, her right arm and hand were deformed and partially paralyzed. Despite her many afflictions, Germaine possessed a charming and sweet disposition.

Early Life and Hardships: Germaine endured not only bodily suffering but also harsh, cruel treatment from her stepmother, who harboured a deep aversion to the little girl. Nearly starved to death, Germaine was forced to sleep in the barn on a pile of leaves and twigs under the stairway. From dawn till dusk, regardless of the season, she would drive the sheep into the fields to graze, then watch them until evening. She also had to spin wool during this time, and if she did not complete her work, she was severely punished.

Faith and Devotion: Despite her hardships, Germaine's faith never wavered. The village children, in contrast to the adults, loved listening to her speak about the goodness and love of God while she tended her flock. The only instruction she ever received was the catechism taught after Sunday Mass in the village church, which she attended with joy. During her long hours of solitude in the fields and at night in the stable, she remained in sweet communion with God and never complained about her hard life.

Every morning, Germaine attended Mass and then knelt before Our Lady’s shrine. To reach the church, she had to cross a stream that, after heavy rains, became a raging torrent. On several occasions, villagers witnessed the rushing waters parting when Germaine approached, allowing her to cross on dry land. When she left her sheep to go to church, she would place her staff upright in the ground, and the sheep never wandered far from it.

Miracles and Death: One day, her stepmother pursued Germaine, accusing her of stealing bread and hiding it in her apron. When Germaine unfolded her apron, fragrant flowers, foreign to the region, fell to the ground. Germaine died one night in 1601, at the age of twenty-one, and was buried in the village church, as was the custom.

Posthumous Miracles: Forty-three years later, when a relative was to be buried near her, the grave-digger found Germaine's body in a state of perfect preservation. His pick struck her nose, causing it to bleed. Some older villagers identified the girl as Germaine Cousin. Following this discovery, numerous miracles occurred, leading to her canonization in 1867 by Pope Pius IX.

Legacy: Today, thousands of pilgrims visit the church in Pibrac, where the relics of Saint Germaine are enshrined. She is venerated as the patron saint of victims of abuse and child abuse, abandoned people, the sick, the impoverished, the physically challenged, and peasant girls.

Saint Germaine's life is a testament to enduring faith, humility, and the power of divine love and mercy. Her story continues to inspire and bring comfort to those who suffer from similar afflictions and hardships.

Prayer:

O Saint Germaine, look down from heaven and intercede for the many abused children in our world. Help them to sanctify these sufferings in union with Jesus. Strengthen children who suffer the effects of living in broken families. Protect those children who have been abandoned by their parents and who live in the streets. Beg God's mercy on the parents who abuse their children. Intercede for handicapped children and their parents. Saint Germaine, you who suffered neglect and abuse so patiently, pray for us. Amen.

Death of a Saint

Tradition tells us that, in the spring of 1601, a priest from the town of Gascony was traveling to the city of Toulouse.  It was night when reached the village of Pibrac, and he could scarcely make out his way in the darkness. Suddenly a celestial brightness penetrated the night and he saw in a vision a beautiful procession of holy virgins, refulgent with light, coming down from Heaven descending into a section of the village.  At the same time, but traveling from another direction, two religious, also overwhelmed by the blackness of the night and having lost their way, sought shelter in the ruins of an ancient castle of Pibrac.  They also saw the virgins, surrounded by a brilliant light.  Awestruck, neither group of travellers knew the meaning of the sight.

At the break of day, Laurent, disturbed by the unusual bleating of the sheep, realized that Germaine had not taken them out as she had the past twenty years.  Loudly he called her name and became anxious when she did not answer.  He went into the barn and found her dead on her bed of straw, her rosary entwined in her fingers and her face shining like an angel.  She died as she had lived, deprived of all human consolation.

Meanwhile, that same morning the traveling priest and the other two religious hastened to tell the villagers of Pibrac that they had seen a vision of a virgin ascending into the heavens.  She was crowned with a brilliant diadem, they agreed, and was accompanied by numerous angels, more radiant than the stars.  The villagers up to that point were not aware of anything having happened in their town, but from the description the travellers gave, they at once concluded that "the holy shepherdess", Germaine, had died.  Running to the Cousin farm, they found Germaine lifeless.  Her angelic countenance struck them, not with fear and dread, as is usually the case, but with piety and devotion.  This beautiful saint was scarcely twenty-two years of age.

News of Germaine's death spread quickly throughout the village and soon the Cousin farm was besieged with mourners.  Her faithful friends, the children, had gathered wild carnations and stalks of rye to make a wreath for her head.  The converted Madame Cousin dressed the poorly clad and undernourished body in a beautiful dress, the like of which Germaine had never worn in her life, and placed a candle in her hands.

Germaine's body was interred in the village church where she loved to pray–it being the only place on earth where she had ever truly felt at home.

Discovery of Her Body–First Miracles

The memory of the shepherdess of Pibrac would surely have been lost in oblivion had not the God she so generously served miraculously manifested His love and approval by the following events.  In 1644, forty-three years after Germaine's death, an older woman of the same parish died, having requested in her will that she be buried in the church near the pulpit. Two workmen began removing the flagstones and were stupefied to see just below the surface the body of a young girl.  Their pickax had struck the nose of the corpse which began to bleed.  Like madmen they ran through the village stammering out their discovery, and bringing back with them a crowd of curious onlookers, two of whom were contemporaries of the Cousin family. These two identified the body as Germaine Cousin, shepherdess of Pibrac.

The body was then removed and encased in a glass casket and placed in the vestibule of the church for all to see.  But not everyone was happy seeing such a visible reminder of her poor life.  One wealthy parishioner and his young wife complained to the pastor, who then removed the body to the sacristy.  That night the young wife was stricken with a mysterious disease which in turn affected her nursing baby.  Within days the two were on the point of death.  The husband begged the shepherdess of Pibrac, whom the village revered as a saint, for help.  He asked her forgiveness for having offended her by their disrespect and begged her to cure his wife and child.  During the novena Germaine appeared to the dying woman and laid her hand on the afflicted area.  Both mother and child were found in perfect health the next morning.  In thanksgiving for this cure, the family had a more fitting repository made for the body of their heavenly benefactress.

An Attempt to Destroy Her Remains

The relics of Germaine in the St. Francis de Sales Chapel in the village of Pibrac

Devotion to Germaine grew and the influence of her life spread to such an extent that, in 1789, almost 200 years after her death, the strength of the Faith in that region of France became an obstacle to the revolutionists. Those wicked men who were attempting to "overthrow the altar and the throne" – to destroy Catholicism – had to destroy the devotion of the people for this simple uneducated orphan.  Three soldiers entered the village church and forcibly removed the incorrupt and pliant body of Germaine.  They then threw the saint's body out-side into an open pit dug for this purpose and covered it with quicklime to speed the process of decomposition.

Those who had performed this sacrilegious deed were suddenly struck with various disfiguring diseases: the neck of one was deformed so that it turned till his face looked backwards; the youngest of the three was afflicted with an obstinate disease, so that he could scarcely walk without the aid of crutches.  This last carried with him to the grave the punishment of his wicked act but the other two, repenting of their sin, obtained their complete cure through the intercession of Germaine.

In spite of opposition and the rage of the revolutionaries the faithful continued to venerate the servant of God in her degrading sepulchre, till the time when they had the consolation of seeing her disinterred anew. Her body was found as fresh as ever, notwithstanding the corruptive effects natural to quicklime.  Our Lord never ceased to glorify His humble servant; and she who in life received only contempt and ill-treatment, after death was honoured by kings and their subjects, young and old, learned and ignorant.

In view of the numerous and great signs wrought through her intercession, she was raised to the honor of our altars by Blessed Pope Pius IX in May, of 1853.  In June, 1867, on the eighteenth centenary of the death of Saint Peter, she was inscribed by Blessed Pius IX in the catalogue of the saints, and fifteenth of June, appointed as her feast day.

Though of short duration, Saint Germaine's life is truly a timeless example to all.  She persevered without the artificial and shallow rhetoric of modern psychology.  She had no support group, no counselling; she did not use Prozac or any other chemical crutch.  She was not forced to turn to crime and sin as an outlet or consequence.  She turned to Christ and found Him sufficient.  Did He not say, Come to Me, all you that labor and are burdened; and I will refresh you.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart; and you shall find rest to your souls.  For My yoke is sweet and My burden light.  (Matt. 11:28-30) St. Germaine, Pray for us.

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