MARIA KUTTENMIEDL, HERMITESS

MARIA KUTTENMIEDL, HERMITESS - 2 FEBRUARY

MARIA KUTTENMIEDL, HERMITESS

On February 2, 1738, an eighty-year-old virgin died in Andechs, Germany, whose descent nobody knew. Regarding her origins, she informed the then pastor P. Bernhard, who later became abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Andechs, that she was the illegitimate daughter of a Saxon baron.

THE "SMOCK MAID"

The people only knew her under the name Kuttenmiedl [Kuttenmiadl], because her name was Maria and she did not wear the usual local costume, but was always dressed in a long, sack-like, rough robe.

A LIFE OF PENANCE

For more than 40 years she led a life of severe penance as regards to food, clothing, shelter, and camp. Her usual abode was a rock cave in the so-called Kienthal [Upper Kien Valley] near Andechs; she not only lived here in the summer, but also spent many winters there.

She had no bed but slept on the bare ground; the long sack-like robe was her only clothing. Only at the strict request of the pastor did she allow herself to be persuaded to use a bed during her last illness.

THE REASON FOR HER ASCETICISM

By being so harsh on herself she wished to make amends to the just God for her own sins and for the sins of her parents. When, in old age, she felt close to her dissolution, she assisted at Holy Mass with all devotion, received the Last Rites and went full of confidence and holy joy from this valley of tears - vulgo Kienthal, as P. Bernhard remarks in the Death Register - to the eternal hills of heavenly bliss. Her body rests in the Erling churchyard.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints - 📷 Part of a page of the Ammersee Heimatblätter, July 1926, relating Kuttenmiedl's extraordinary story)

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