PRAYER TO SAINT GERMAINE COUSIN
WHEN TREATED WITH CRUELTY
St. Germaine, you were born in a French village, the unwanted daughter of a farmer and his second wife. As a child you were afflicted with scrofula and had a deformed arm, all of which incensed your stepmother and caused her to treat you very cruelly. She made you sleep in the barn with the animals, gave you cast off rags to wear, neglected you once as a toddler by leaving you in a ditch for three days, poured boiling water on your legs, and often beat you mercilessly. Because you didn’t have any shoes, your feet were frost bitten in winter and bloody in the summer. You were emaciated for the lack of food. The children of the village shunned you and the adults ignored you. The only comfort you received was the mass, which you heard every morning while your guardian angel watched the flock.Not long before you died, the villagers witnessed your stepmother running after you, screaming that you had stolen some of the family’s bread and hid it in your apron to feed a beggar. When she caught you, your apron dropped open and flowers spilled out instead. This was in the middle of winter. What made you a Saint was how you responded to this mistreatment. You formed a deep relationship with God, speaking with Him in simple terms and praying the rosary which you kept by your side as you tended the sheep. You gave what little food you had to others. And you forgave your stepmother for her cruelty with all your heart.
Upon your death at the mere age of twenty-two, a couple of monks traveling through the village were awakened by the sound of music and a light illuminating a barn in the distance. They saw in that light two heavenly forms accompanying you up into heaven. When your body was dug up forty years later to make way for another relative, it was found to be incorrupt and not only that, you were ravishing to look upon. The only reason you were identified for certain as Germaine Cousin was because of your deformed right arm and the trace of scrofulous scars upon your neck.
St. Germaine, pray for us when others treat us harshly and unjustly, that we may be as forgiving as you were and love them with the love of Christ. St. Germaine, you gave to the poor even though you were starving yourself; pray that we will give even when we are convinced we don’t have enough for ourselves. St. Germaine, the mass was the highlight and source of strength in your life; pray that we may reverence this Sacrament and partake of the Eucharist as often as we can. Amen.
St. Germaine Cousin, pray for us!
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