St. Germaine Cousin
Born: December 15, 1579
Died: June 15, 1601
Feast day: June 15
Patron saint of: abandoned people, abuse victims, disabled people, girls from rural areas, illness, impoverishment, sick people, unkind people, physical therapists
St. Germaine was born in Pibrac, France in 1579. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her father remarried a woman named Hortense, the archetypal evil stepmother.
Hortense made no secret of her dislike for Germaine, who was born with a deformed right hand and had the disease of scrofula, which made sores erupt on her neck. This dislike took the form of neglect and abuse; Hortense deprived Germaine of food and made her sleep in the stable or in the space under the stairs. As a girl Germaine was sent to tend the sheep, another way to keep the ugly child out of her stepmother’s sight.
Germaine, though, turned this banishment into a closer relationship with the divine. Although she knew only the most basic elements of her faith, she developed a rich prayer life and personal friendship with God. She went to daily Mass and shared spiritual stories with the local children; she often gave her meager food scraps to beggars.
Her loving generosity—and her astonishing lack of resentment toward her stepmother—gradually earned her the villagers’ respect. As her reputation for holiness grew, her family had a change of heart and invited her back into the house, but Germaine preferred the humble bed she’d always known. One morning, when she was 22, her father went to wake her. He found her dead in her bed.
More about St. Germaine Cousin:
Retelling the Cinderella story of St. Germaine Cousin
St. Germaine Cousin's fairy-tale ending was sainthood, but the moral of her story is to care for victims of child abuse, not to celebrate suffering.
Image: Wikimedia Commons cc via Didier Descouens.
