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.