St Germaine Cousin of Pibrac (1579-1601): weakness confounding strength
Under the stairs
Daughter of a farm worker in the
small village of Pibrac, near Toulouse in southern France, Germaine's
mother died when she young.
Germaine's right hand was deformed and she
suffered from tubercular swellings on her neck.
Her father never liked
her and when he married again, her stepmother, not wanting her around
her own healthy children, made her sleep under the stairs or with the
sheep in the barn. When she was old enough, she was put to mind the
sheep in the fields.
In the fields: miracles
Germaine did not complain
and enjoyed talking with God in the fields. She went to Mass as often
she could.
She would leave the sheep, as she said, in the care of her
guardian angel. They never wandered away from where her shepherd's staff
was planted in the ground, nor did the wolves come to attack them.
Various miracles are told about her. One day a stream in full flood from
rain opened like the Red Sea to let her cross it to go to Mass.
Another tells that her stepmother accused her of stealing bread and
chased her with a stick.
In the chase Germaine let her apron fall and
what fell out on the snow was not bread but summer flowers.
With other children and beggars
Germaine got on
well with children younger than herself who did not mock her
disabilities and she often gathered them around her to teach them
catechism. She would share what little food she had with them and with
hungrier beggars.
She becomes respected
By now the local people
began to believe they had a saint in their midst and no longer mocked
her.
Even her father and stepmother changed towards her, but she chose
to continue sleeping in the barn.
Death and canonisation
One morning in
1601, Germaine was found dead on her straw mattress. She was twenty-two
years old.
She was buried in the village church and after her body was
accidentally exhumed in 1644 and found to be incorrupt, people began to
make pilgrimages to her grave and miracles took place.
Pope Pius IX
beatified her in 1854 and canonised her in 1867.