LOST OR IN DANGER
by Lawrence S. Cunningham - reprinted from the June, 2003 issue of St. Anthony Messenger Magazine
Germaine Cousin, born in 1579, was only an infant when her
mother died. She was left in the somewhat indifferent care of her
father, Laurent, a peasant of Pibrac near the French city of Toulouse.
Laurent's second wife, Hortense, appears to have been the
quintessential wicked stepmother. She despised the sickly child who had
a deformed arm and symptoms of scrofula, now diagnosed as tuberculosis
of the lymph nodes in the neck.
Hortense consigned her stepdaughter to a straw mat in the barn or an
alcove under a stairwell. Fed leftover slops, Germaine never had a pair
of shoes.
At the age of five, Germaine was already a shepherdess, with
the added task of spinning a daily quota of wool. If she failed, she
went hungry that night. Hortense beat the young child regularly.
She Taught What She Knew Best
Germaine never went to school, though she learned enough
catechism to make her First Communion. She would pasture her animals
"in the care of the angels," as she said, to walk to daily Mass. She
also taught other children the rudiments of faith while they were in
the fields, earning a reputation as a religious fanatic.
Over time, however, her simple piety won over the villagers
and even her stepmother who invited her back to full family membership.
Germaine chose to keep her pallet under the stairs.
In 1601, just shy of her 22nd birthday, she was found dead.
She was buried in the village church in an unmarked grave under the
flagstones of the nave.
In 1644, her incorrupt body was discovered during
restorations. She was identified by an elderly neighbor who recognized
her from her crippled arm. She was reburied in a casket and devotees
began to regard her as a saint.
In 1793 her casket was violated by a local tinsmith who used
lead from the casket to make bullets for soldiers in the French
Revolution. Her body was thrown into a grave in the sacristy and
covered with quicklime. Germaine's body was reinterred when the
anti-religious fervor of the Revolution had quieted.
Moral Miracle
Devotion to Germaine is quite strong in France where pilgrims
come to her shrine in Pibrac to invoke her aid. She is the special
patroness of victims of abuse, abandoned people, persons with
disabilities, shepherdesses, young women in danger and orphans.
Pope Pius IX canonized her in 1867. While many miracles have
been attributed to her intercession, the great moral miracle is that
she was never spiritually or psychologically crippled by the
indifference or abuse she suffered.
While we can admire her heroism, we would be remiss if we did
not also feel a profound anger over the abuse she-like so many others
in her time and ours-received. Germaine reminds us of the fierce words
of Jesus against those who scandalize children: "It would be better for
him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown
into the sea" (Mark 9:42).
In these crisis-laden days in the contemporary Church, the
example of Germaine speaks across the centuries to remind us that,
among the abused, great saints are to be found.
Historical Note:
Germaine Cousin's path to canonization was sabotaged by ineptitude and
politics. After preliminary investigations in 1661, a complete dossier
of her life was compiled in 1700. It was entrusted to a Capuchin friar,
Father Constantin, by the archbishop of Toulouse. When he reached Rome,
the friar asked a companion to deliver the information to the Vatican,
since he was leaving for the Middle East. The papers were either lost
or forgotten.
In 1765, a priest from a village near Pibrac wrote a life of
the saint. This led the archbishop of Toulouse, Paul D'Astros, to
reopen her case. Germaine's story came to the attention of Pope Pius
IX, but her beatification was delayed until 1854 because of political
turmoil in the Papal States. Thirteen years later, on the feast of Sts.
Peter and Paul (June 29), she was canonized. True to her humble roots,
she is listed 13th in the Roman Martyrology among the saints celebrated
on June 15.