Volume 7 — The Holy Shepherdess of Pibrac, Canonized By Pope Pius IX. In 1867.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century, beneath the walls of Toulouse, bloomed, almost unseen and unknown, a little flower of the fields, whose delicate chalice emitted a perfume scarcely perceptible to mortal sense. It passed away, and seemed forgotten; but its odor still lingered where it had blossomed; and after a few years had gone, its dust was gathered into the sanctuary, that the holy place might be filled with the celestial fragrance.

Germaine Cousin was born at Pibrac, a village of nearly two hundred families in the environs of Toulouse, about the year 1579. The parish church was dependent on the great Priory of the Knights of Malta in that city. The chateau belonged to the Du Faur, Lords of Pibrac. The actual proprietor was Guy, famous at once as an orator, a poet, and a successful courtier. Once the proudest remembrance of the place was the visit of Catharine de Medicis and her daughter, Margaret of Navarre, who were magnificently entertained by the Lord of Pibrac. But now the visit of the two queens, and the fame and opulence of the great orator, are nearly forgotten; while the memory of our holy shepherdess has lived for nearly three centuries in the hearts of all the inhabitants of Pibrac. The chateau is a forsaken ruin; but the church has become a place of pilgrimage, because Germaine prayed beneath its arches, and there found a tomb.

Her father was a poor husbandman, to whom tradition gives the name of Lawrence. Her mother's name was Marie Laroche. From the first moment of her existence, she seemed destined to suffering and affliction. She was infirm from her birth, being unable to use her right hand, and afflicted with scrofula. While yet a child, she became motherless; and, as if these were not trials enough to accumulate at once upon the head of one so frail, her father did not long delay to fill the vacant place on his hearth. Absorbed in her own children, this second wife, instead of pitying the hapless orphan whom Providence had confided to her care, conceived an aversion for her. But the trials to which Germaine was subjected were proofs of the divine favor. To them she was indebted for the brilliancy of her virtues, especially humility and patience.

As soon as she was old enough, her step-mother, who could not endure her presence at home, sent her forth to guard the flocks. This was her occupation the remainder of her life. But even in the depths of her lonely life, our shepherdess created for herself a more profound solitude. She was never seen in the company of the young shepherds; their sports never attracted her; their jeers never disturbed her thoughtful serenity; she only spoke sometimes to girls of her own age, sweetly exhorting them to be mindful of God!

We know not from whom Germaine received her first religious instructions—what hand, friendly to misfortune, revealed to her the great truths of salvation. Doubtless, it was the curé of the parish; for holy church despises not the meanest of her children; and her sagacious eye is quick to discover the chosen of God. But, whoever it was, he did but little, and there was little to be done. God himself perfected the religious training of his handmaiden. She early learned what must for ever remain unknown to those who do not recognize in him the fountain of all wisdom. Living amid the wonders of creation, she contemplated them with the intelligent eye of innocence. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God—see him in the brilliant stars, the burning sun, the unfathomable heavens, and the changing clouds—see him in the flowers and plants that cover the surface of the earth! Germaine learned from the open book of nature a wondrous lore; and her attuned ear caught and comprehended that mysterious, anthem of praise, which, floating through creation, is unheard by more sinful man. Her pure soul united in the eternal song: Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino: laudate et superexaltate eum in saecula!

Although Germaine was a poor infirm orphan, subjected to the heavy yoke of a severe step-mother, and exposed by her occupation to the inclemency of the weather, she bore all her trials with cheerfulness, never brooding over her sorrows. One of the characteristics of the saints which particularly distinguishes them from ordinary Christians, is, the use made of the common occurrences of life. They share in common with other men, and often in a greater degree, the trials common to humanity; but they are chastened, purified by them, and they look upon the afflictions of this life as a means of assimilating them to Him who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Even in the manifest ill treatment and injustice of the malignant and wicked, they disregard the channel, but accept the suffering, as a means of perfection.

The extent to which this principle is carried, is peculiarly Catholic; and, in reading the lives of our saints, we cannot but be struck by it. They never struggled against their trials, and therefore were cheerful under them; for the greater part of our wretchedness proceeds from struggling against the current of life. This is the key to the saying of Fénélon: Non-resistance is a remedy for every ill.

The paternal roof was not for Germaine, as for most—even the most wretched—a refuge and a place of repose. And yet neither her poverty, nor sorrows, nor infirmities, could have rendered her insensible to that which surpasses all the other pleasures of life—the happiness of being loved. By a divine foresight, God has placed in the hearts of parents, by the side of that fount of love for their offspring, a well of singular tenderness for the unfortunate child, the black lamb of the flock. This peculiar love Germaine had not. She had not even the legitimate share of her father's heart. She was denied a place at the fireside; she was hardly allowed shelter in the house. Her step-mother, irritable and imperious, would send her away to some obscure corner. She was not permitted to approach the other children—those brothers and sisters whom she loved so tenderly, and whom she was always ready to serve without manifesting any envy on account of the preferences of which they were the object, and she the victim. The inflexible harshness of her step-mother obliged the infirm girl to seek a place of repose in the stable, or upon a heap of vine branches in an out-house.

But Germaine knew too well the value of sufferings not to accept with joy these humiliations and this injustice. And, as if her cross were yet too light, she imposed upon herself additional austerities. During the greater part of her life, she denied herself all nourishment but bread and water.

So great a conformity to her poor, suffering, and persecuted Saviour, kindled in the heart of Germaine an ardent love for his adorable humanity. Notwithstanding her feebleness and other obstacles, she assisted every day at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Even the obligations of her calling could not keep her from church at that hour. Confiding in God, she left her flock in the pasture, and hastened to the foot of the altar. It is a misguided piety which induces us to neglect the duties of our state of life in order to satisfy our devotion; but with Germaine this was the result of prompt obedience to a special inspiration. She knew who would guard her sheep; while she, poor lamb of Christ's flock! went to refresh herself at the fountain of living water.

Even when her sheep were feeding close by the wood of Boucone, which skirted the fields of Pibrac, and abounded with wolves, at the sound of the church bell she would plant her crook or her distaff in the ground, and hasten to the feet of the divine Shepherd. At her return, she always found her sheep unharmed. Not one was ever devoured by the wolves, nor did they ever stray into the neighboring fields.

Long after St. Germaine's death, the peasants of the hamlet remembered the unearthly brightness of her face as, week after week, she approached the holy sacraments.

"A celestial brightness, a more ethereal beauty, Shone on her face and encircled her form when, after confession, Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her."

In the Holy Eucharist she found a compensation for every grief. That divine Spouse to whom she was pledged placed himself as a seal upon her heart, thereby strengthening it to endure the trials of life, and enriching it with such abundant grace that, while dwelling at large in the great temple of nature, her life gleamed before him, brightly, and purely, and constantly, like the undying lamp of the sanctuary!

Like all the saints, Germaine had a singular devotion to Mary—that devotion so dear to the Catholic heart, and which is considered by the fathers as a mark of predestination. The world does not realize how much it has owed to Mary during these eighteen hundred years; yet some, some of us know how dark and almost unbearable it would be with its sorrows, and cares, and privations, if over all were not diffused the beauty and softness, the sweet charm of virginity and love, from the divine face of Mary!

To Germaine, the Ave Maria was another salutation of the angel preluding the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost; and she murmured the sacred words with infinite tenderness, above all, at the hour when they are on every lip. As soon as she heard the Angelus bell, which has three times a day, for six centuries, intoned the Ave Maria between heaven and earth, it was remarked that, wherever she might be, she immediately fell upon her knees as if insensible to the incommodiousness of the place.

The Rosary was her only book; and to her this devotion was no vain repetition. "Love," says Lacordaire, "has but one word, and, in saying that for ever, it is never repeated."

"Ever transformed to meet our needs. Oft as Devotion counts her beads, As if those beads had caught the light In her celestial girdle bright, But each with its own colors dight. Thus, whensoe'er that prayer is heard, Fresh thoughts are in each solemn word: An orb of light comes from the skies To kindle holy liturgies; It gathers and gives back their rays. Now turned to prayer, and now to praise."

The love of God insensibly leads to the love of one's neighbor. Germaine, when she could, used to draw around her the little children of the village, and endeavor to explain to them the truths of religion, and sweetly persuade them to love Jesus and Mary. This little school, held in the shade of a thicket of the lone fields, was a spectacle worthy of the admiration of angels, and is a proof of the unselfishness of real piety, even in the most lowly.

Although the piety of Germaine produced a profound impression in the village, yet the world is the same everywhere, and always conceives a secret aversion to piety. It cannot avoid censuring it in some way, however unobtrusive a piety it may be. Religion imposes esteem upon the world, and the world avenges itself by raillery. So the wits of Pibrac persecuted Germaine with mockery; they laughed at her simplicity, and called her a bigot.

But if God permits, for the perfection of the saints, that their virtue be turned into ridicule, he knows, when it pleaseth him, how to render them glorious in the eyes of the world.

In order to reach the village church, Germaine was obliged to pass the Courbet, a stream she generally crossed without difficulty in ordinary weather; but after heavy rains, it was too wide and deep to be passed on foot. One morning, as she was going to church, according to her custom, some peasants who saw her afar off stopped at a distance, and asked one another in a tone of mockery how she would pass the stream, now so swollen by the rain that the most vigorous man could hardly have stemmed the torrent. Dreaming of no obstacle, and perhaps not seeing any, Germaine approached as if none existed. ... O wonder of divine power and goodness! As of old the waters of the Red Sea opened for the passage of the children of Israel, so those of the Courbet divided before the humble daughter of Lawrence Cousin, and she passed through without wetting even the edge of her garments. At the sight of this miracle, afterward often repeated, the peasants looked at one another with fear; and from that time the boldest began to respect the simple maiden whom they had hitherto scoffed at.

After having thus glorified the faith of Germaine by dissipating the material obstacles to the performance of her duty, God wished also to glorify her charity to the poor.

If any one could believe himself exempted from the obligation of charity and alms-giving, it was certainly our shepherdess. She had no superfluities; she lacked even the necessaries of life. What was there, then, to retrench, in her life of extreme privation and severe penance? How economize the reward of her labor, which consisted only of a little bread and water? But charity is ingenious; and, seeing only our suffering Lord in the person of the poor, Germaine often deprived herself of a part of the bread which was allowed for her nourishment, doubly glad to give it to the hungry, and increase the treasure of her privations. Such are the deeds of the saints which will one day reproach us with terrible power! What will the rich man say when he beholds, rising up to confront his hardness of heart, the alms of Lazarus!

The pious liberality of Germaine made her an object of suspicion to her step-mother, who, not divining her resources, accused her of stealing bread from the house. One day she learned that Germaine, who had just gone with the flock, carried in her apron some pieces of bread. Furious, and armed with a cudgel, she immediately ran after her. Some of the other inhabitants of Pibrac happened to be on their way at this very moment to the house of Lawrence Cousin. Seeing this woman almost beside herself with passion, they divined her intentions, and hastened to protect Germaine from the ill treatment with which she was menaced. Overtaking the step-mother, they learned the cause of her anger. Finding Germaine, she seized her apron, and instead of bread, it was filled with bouquets of roses, although it was a season when those flowers were not in bloom. Thus God confounded the malice of her implacable enemy by renewing a miracle, likewise wrought in favor of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and other saints.

From this time, Germaine was regarded as a saint. Lawrence Cousin, conceiving more tender sentiments toward this pious child whom he had so little known, forbade his wife's annoying her any more, and wished to give her a place in his house with the other children. But Germaine, accustomed to suffering and loving privation, besought him to leave her in the obscure place which her step-mother had assigned her.

It was now that Germaine attained and proved the perfection of her humility. We must not consider it a trifling honor to have been esteemed at Pibrac; nor a small reward to have had a place at the fireside of Lawrence Cousin. Human nature is the same everywhere. There is no theatre too small for ambition. We know there are as many cabals for the first place in a village as for the chief place in an empire.

Perhaps it may not be entirely useless to speak of the exterior of the blessed Germaine. The manners and customs of the remote provinces of France retain so much of primitive simplicity, they change so little year after year, and the people in these localities have such a marked appearance, that we may form a reasonable idea of her person and habits.

She is represented in paintings and engravings as we see scores of shepherdesses in the south of France at this day—seated on a hillock in the fields, and surrounded by her flock. With a spindle in her hand, and under her arm the distaff laden with flax, she is spinning, after the primitive manner of that country. She is rather below the medium size, and is slight in form. She has the long head of the Toulousains, and their dark, Spanish complexion and eyes. The face, half hidden by the picturesque scarlet capuchon, is expressive of silence, interior silence; and forcibly speaks of the deep, deep calm within. A pleasing sadness, or rather a subdued joy, veils her face. There is an introspective look about the eyes which shows that her spirit has passed the bounds of sense, and is concentrated in one mysterious thought—some dream of a heavenly world. Sitting alone, away from her kind, her thoughts were pure and holy and bright, like the fragrant flowers of her own green meadows. She must have seemed to the other peasants like some phantom of unearthly love, as she sat there enveloped in a divine ethereal atmosphere. In the distance rise the towers of the church, and the antique château of the Lords of Pibrac, and between murmurs the Courbet. Over all, is the sunlight of her own bright clime.

Perhaps the miracle of the roses is the most popular representation of Saint Germaine, as something not quite so unearthly. There is no mystery about the look of the fierce step-mother, as with one hand she raises the cudgel over the head of the resigned-looking girl, and with the other grasps the apron from which tumble out the bright and fragrant flowers. The face of Germaine is somewhat sad, and her eyes are cast down in fear to the earth. Tremulous and mute she stands before her step-mother, for she is humble and sore afraid. There is a reflective charm about her of which she is wholly unconscious, for it emanates from that spiritual beauty visible only to the intelligences and bright ardors around the throne.

Saint Germaine died soon after the miracle of the roses. Almighty God, having sanctified her by humiliations and sufferings, withdrew her from this world when men, becoming more just, began to render her the honor her virtue merited. She terminated her obscure and hidden life by a similar death, but according to appearance this terrible moment, which confounds human arrogance, gave her no terror or pain.

One morning, Lawrence Cousin, not seeing her come out as usual, went to call her where she slept—under the stairs. She made no reply. He entered and found her upon her bed of vine-branches. She had fallen asleep while at prayer. God had called her to enjoy the reward of eternal life. She had ceased to suffer.

It was about the commencement of the summer of the year 1601 that Saint Germaine entered into the joy of her Lord. She was twenty-two years of age.

That same night two pious men were overtaken near Pibrac by the darkness of night, and obliged to await the return of day in a neighboring forest. All at once, in the middle of the night, the woods were flooded with a light more brilliant than the dawn, and a company of virgins, clothed in white garments and surrounded by a dazzling light, floated by on the darkness toward the house of Lawrence Cousin. Soon after they returned, but there was another in their midst—more radiant still—who had on her head a chaplet of fresh flowers. ...

People came in crowds to her funeral, wishing to honor her whom they had too long despised, whom too late they had known. This was the first testimony of public veneration. Her body was buried in the church in front of the pulpit. Forty-three years after, it was found entire and preserved from corruption. It had been embalmed with her virginal purity. In her hands were a taper and a garland of pinks and heads of grain. The flowers had scarcely faded. The grain was fresh as at the time of harvest.

The holy body was removed and finally placed in the sacristy, where people of all ranks, incited by the wonders wrought at her tomb, came to offer their homage.

In 1843, more than four hundred legally attested miracles had been wrought at her shrine, and so excited the faith of the people in her power before God, that the Archbishop of Toulouse, and nearly all the other prelates of France, petitioned the Holy See for her beatification. It had been desired before the French Revolution, but it was not attempted till the time of Gregory XVI.

When the commissioners went to examine the condition of the remains of the venerable Germaine, a most extraordinary scene took place. The inhabitants of Pibrac, thinking that the beatification of their shepherdess might terminate in the loss of their holy treasure, came in a body to the door of the church. They received the commissioners with threats and even with stones, so it was only with difficulty an entrance could be effected into the church. The furious multitude followed, and the examination was made in the midst of a frightful tumult. "No! no!" was heard on all sides. "No beatification. St. Germaine cures us when we are sick; that is enough. She belongs to us. We wish to keep her."

The brief for the beatification of Germaine Cousin was issued by the order of his holiness Pius IX., on the 1st of July, 1853.

The Triduo which was held at Pibrac, in 1854, in honor of this event, manifested the joy and the faith of the people. Altars, lighted up by the bright sun of France, were erected in the fields once trod by the feet of Germaine, so that hundreds of Masses could be offered at once. The whole country around poured in. Toulouse seemed vacated. There were eighty thousand persons assembled around that shrine. On the first day there were fourteen thousand communicants. In the procession were eighteen hundred young ladies robed in white. They all held white lilies in one hand, and wax tapers in the other, and as they entered the church and passed the altar, they deposited their tapers on one side and their lilies on the other. Conspicuous in the procession were those who had been healed by the intervention of the holy shepherdess. Lights were in their hands, and they made an offering of gratitude at the altar.

The house in which the blessed Germaine had lived was endangered during those days of religious triumph. It was in a tolerable state of preservation, but every one seemed anxious to secure a portion of the walls that once sheltered her, and especially of the spot sanctified by the angel of death.

A resident in the south of France at the time of the beatification of Saint Germaine, as she was even then, with one accord, called in that country, I was forcibly impressed with the enthusiastic veneration and confidence with which she was regarded by all classes. Every week I heard of some new miracle at her tomb; so they soon ceased to excite wonder, and seemed to belong to the established order of events. There was scarcely an individual in my circle of acquaintance who had not been, at least once, to prostrate himself at her shrine, and there was a lively faith in her protection, which proved to me how strongly the spirit of the middle ages still animates the hearts of the faithful.

So popular a devotion was a novelty to me—a "native American"—but I could not long remain insensible to its influence. One misty October day found me likewise an humble pilgrim at the shrine of the holy shepherdess of Pibrac.

The very air of that antique chapel inspires devotion. A supernatural influence seemed to impregnate everything around me. I saw, too, that I was not the only one who felt this subtle influence penetrating to the very heart; for the faces of all the pilgrims, priests, religious, and laymen of every rank who are constantly arriving and departing, were indicative of a holy awe. Though I got there at a late hour, and it was raining, Masses were still being celebrated, and the church was full. It was no festival. It was so every day. Masses were said at every altar from early dawn till the latest canonical hour. Prostrate groups from different parishes were always there, clustered in the nave, or gathered about the shrine; and here and there were lone pilgrims who, like me, had been brought from the ends of the earth. And around and over all were constellations of brightly burning tapers, emblematic of the prayer of faith, left there by the pilgrim as loth he slowly left the hallowed sanctuary.

The tomb of Saint Germaine is in a side chapel, protected by a grate. Her relics are covered with gold and silver and precious stones, ex votes, which gleam in the light of the votive candles around. Involuntarily there comes to the heart in this fitting place, and to the lips, the strain, Exaltavit humiles!

"Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick!" is the cry of every weary, sin-laden heart; above all here, where thou dost love to display thy goodness and thy power. The sacred heart of thy humanity, ever touched with feeling for our infirmities, is not hardened. It is still as tender and as compassionate as when thou didst weep over the grave at Bethany, and thy hand is as powerful. I believe that thou, who art honored in thy saints, dost heal here both soul and body of those who approach thee with faith and with love, especially with love. "Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much," was uttered centuries ago, but has been repeated times without number since, over penitent, loving souls. O power of love over the divine heart! It is only the cold, the feeble in faith, who have no power to draw from this inexhaustible well of compassion.

If every Catholic heart were, as it should be, a chapelle ardente, all aflame with the love of God, how soon would the spiritual infirmities of entire humanity be healed, and the wounds of Christ's bleeding body be bound up!

Reader! let the aspiration of divine love, indulgenced by our sovereign pontiff on the 7th of May, 1854, in honor of the beatification of Germaine Cousin, be often on our lips and in our hearts: "Jesu, Deus MEUS, AMO TE SUPER OMNIA!" Jesus, my God, I love thee above all things!