Way back in the Catholic days of my childhood, I was tasked with picking a saint's name to add to my own for the occasion of my "Confirmation." I selected a French saint, Germaine, a shepherdess born in 1579. I liked her name, and I liked that she was a loner, spending her days outdoors with her flock of sheep. I had no internet access back then, so I knew little about her.
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I confess I haven't thought much about her since, until recently with the news about Pope John Paul II's fast track to sainthood and the miracle he was said to have performed after his death--curing a French nun of Parkinson's disease.
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Well, it's not such a big deal. That is mostly how it works with Saints. Miracles seem pretty common place after death. St. Germaine is busy. Since her untimely death at age 22 in 1601, no less than 400 "miracles" have been attributed to her intervention...from blindness to spinal disease. Even so, she wasn't canonized until 1867. That would be 266 years.
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Sadly she never cured herself. Born with a deformed hand she also suffered from Scrofula, which is a simply awful thing... that led her evil stepmother Hortense (great name for such a witch) to abuse her, and then send her to the fields to prevent the other children from catching it. The poor girl slept in the barn and was forced to eat table scraps.
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Germaine shared what little food she had with beggars, helped others and did good in the world despite her terrible circumstances. Her sheep were never attacked by wolves. Miracles or not, I respect her and I'm glad I have her name.
2 comments:
I hadn't seen this one. That is good name and sounds as though she was a good soul. Nice.
Can girls pick boy saints' names?
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