MARIA MADDALENA of the S.MA TRINITÀ. - Mystic, in the world Maddalena Martin, b. at Aix (Provence) on 3 June 1612, d. at Avignon on 20 Feb. 1678. From childhood she devoted herself to prayer and took delight in mortifications and sufferings, happy to suffer for the love of God. Together with Fr Antonio Yvan, her confessor and spiritual director, she founded the Order of the Sisters of N.S. della Misericordia (1633), for which she had to overcome immense difficulties, both from the population of Aix and from Archbishop Luigi Bretel. The Order, approved by Urban VIII (3 June 1642), was enclosed and followed the Rule of St Augustine.
Despite frail health, difficult times, and the persecutions of many enemies, with humility and heroic self-denial Sister M. M. succeeded in opening 6 houses of her Order, now extinct. She left in manuscript certain spiritual maxims, published and commented upon for the first time by A. Piny, her first biographer (Annecy 1679, Lyons 1680).