Saint Germaine Cousin

Saint Germaine Cousin was a poor shepherd girl from Pibrac, a village near Toulouse in southern France. Throughout her short life she bore disability, illness, and rejection, and yet she shared with the poor what little she had. The Church commemorates her on June 15.

She was born in Pibrac into a poor family. The year of her birth is not certain: 1579 or 1570 is given, and the Roman Martyrology says that she died in the twenty-second year of her life. She came into the world with a disabled hand and suffered from scrofula. She lost her mother early. The details of her family situation are not entirely certain. According to the traditional account, her father married again, and her stepmother treated the girl harshly and kept her away from the rest of the household, on the grounds that the other children might catch her disease.

From her earliest years she had to tend the sheep. She usually spent the nights in the stable, on a poor bed. The Roman Martyrology says that from childhood she led a life of servitude and illness, and that she bore every hardship with a strong spirit and a cheerful face.

Her life was centered on faith. Whenever she could, she went to church for the morning Mass, leaving her flock in the pasture in the care of Providence. Tradition holds that the wolves from the nearby forest never attacked her sheep. At the sound of the Angelus bell she knelt wherever she happened to be. She gathered the village children and spoke to them about God. Though she herself had little, she shared her bread with beggars and the poor.

Stories handed down by tradition are connected with her. According to one of them, a swollen stream parted before her as she was going to church. According to another, when she was suspected of carrying bread out of the house for the poor, flowers were found in her apron, although it was not the season for flowers. The villagers, who at first had laughed at her piety, in time came to respect her. When the household finally wanted to take her in under the common roof, she preferred to remain in her humble place.

She died alone on June 15, 1601; in the morning she was found dead on her bed. She was buried in the parish church of Pibrac. In 1644, when the grave was opened to lay one of her relatives in it, Germaine’s body was found intact. From then on people prayed for healing at her remains, and many of the faithful testified to graces received. In 1793, during the French Revolution, her remains were desecrated and covered with quicklime.

In the nineteenth century the efforts for her beatification were taken up again. Pope Pius IX declared her blessed in 1854, and on June 29, 1867, he enrolled her among the saints. She is venerated as the patron saint of shepherds.