Born a princess, Maud was a granddaughter of an abbess (who didn’t become an abbess until widowhood, of course), a would-be nun herself who was married off to a duke, a faithful wife, and a mother of very rotten sons.

Maud, you see, used her position once married to give LOTS and LOTS of her riches to the poor, to prisoners, to those in need–all with her husband’s blessing. But when Maud’s husband died, her sons (coming into positions of greater power) “conspired to strip her of her dowry, on the unjust pretence [sic] that she had squandered away the revenues of the state upon the poor.”

Somehow, Maud continued to love and pray for these offspring of hers and their shame overcame them. They restored their mother’s fortunes to her–only to watch Maud turn right around and give them away to the poor. She was incorrigible that way.

Maud was indomitable–so much so that she received her last rites once, lived an additional two weeks (during which time, the priest who administered those rites himself died), and had to receive those last rights a second time! One might almost describe this saint as “uncompromising, enterprising, anything but tranquilizing”!