June 15th - Germaine Cousin

Why is it that the ones who should support us (or whom we should support) are those closest to us and yet are the ones most likely to earn our scorn?
Germaine was denigrated and ostracized by her family for a deformation and illness. It was only after her holiness came to light through miracles that they tried to reconcile with her. That was not the only irony. Her remains were accidentally exhumed in 1644 during a renovation of the church in Pibrac, where her body was found to be incorrupt. In 1793 the casket was desecrated during the French Revolution anti-Catholic purge when a group of men took out the remains and buried them in the sacristy, throwing quick-lime and water on them. After the Revolution, her body was found to be still intact save where the quick-lime had done its work.
Her body, deformed and marked by illness was incorruptible, unable to be destroyed even by malicious guile. Is that not how God works! We may be broken and reviled by "normal" society, even our families but it does not stop the love of God.

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Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”  

-- 1 Corinthians 1:26-31