The Eucharistic miracle of Pibrac is linked to Saint Germaine Cousin (1579–1601). In order to assist at Holy Mass, she crossed a raging, swollen river whose waters parted miraculously before her. When this young shepherdess was orphaned of her mother in infancy, her father remarried a woman who treated the frail girl with relentless cruelty because scrofula and disease had left her right hand paralyzed and her appearance deformed. Her stepmother could not bear to look upon her and forced Germaine to sleep beneath the cellar stairway on a bed of twigs.
Germaine, however, lived in intimate union with the Lord and possessed an ardent love for the Most Holy Eucharist, which she visited daily. Every day she would plant her distaff in the pasture to attend Holy Mass and receive Holy Communion, and miraculously, wolves never attacked her unguarded flock. To reach the parish church she had to cross the Courbet stream. One morning, torrential rains had caused the stream to overflow violently, submerging the wooden footbridge and rendering the crossing impassable. Resolute not to miss Holy Communion, Germaine approached the torrent, made the Sign of the Cross, and stepped forward: immediately, the roaring waters parted to the left and right, allowing her to cross on dry ground. The miracle occurred both on her way to church and on her return.
Text and photographs: international exhibition «The Eucharistic Miracles of the World», by Saint Carlo Acutis. Original panel at miracolieucaristici.org.