Saint Maodez of Brittany
The eighteenth of November is the feast day of Saint Maodez [also Maudez, Maudetus, Mawes, or Maw], an Irish saint who is primarily venerated in Brittany and Cornwall – in both of which places he lived and worked as a hermit.
Maodez was born to a Breton mother named Senara and a rather jealous and paranoid Breton king. Senara, who was several months pregnant, was wrongly accused of adultery, and these accusations were believed by her husband. In rage, he ordered Senara thrown into the sea in a barrel to drown. However, God kept her alive for five months at sea, and she gave birth in the barrel to Maodez. She washed ashore in Ireland and raised her son there until he was fully grown. Because the story of his origins is so similar to that of Saint Beuzeg of Dol, it’s been surmised that they may have been twin brothers or even the same person. Both men were missionary monks of Welsh origin, and the monasteries they founded were very close together.
Maodez sojourned from Ireland when he came of age and settled in a hermit’s cell near Falmouth, the fishing village which he founded. Sometime after 524, Saint Maodez began sojourning in Devon and Cornwall, founding another village nearby which still bears his name.
Saint Maodez then set sail across the English Channel with his disciples. They landed on an island off the coast of France, which is now called Île Maudez in his honour. It may have been the case that he was fleeing an outbreak of yellow fever back home. He gained a reputation in subsequent years for his ability to wondrously cure many kinds of illness – a reputation which continued to follow his relics and even the earth above his grave.
He showed his holiness on Île Maudez by clearing the island of snakes and other vermin, which he did by setting brush fires around the island. He would also go on to found a monastic community there. He also gained the trust of the local Bretons by teaching their children; and he also established a number of churches in the surrounding countryside in Brittany. (In iconography and art he is still shown as either a bishop or a schoolteacher.) He was an ardent and zealous apostle to his own people, as attested by the many churches in the region which still bear his name.
One day the last fire on Île Maudez was put out inadvertently. Saint Maodez sent a lay brother of his monastic community at low tide to cross over to the mainland of Brittany to bring back a lit torch. He found one and made to bring it back, only to see that the tide was coming in again. It rose higher and higher, engulfing the land bridge on which he had crossed. The water rose to the boy’s ankles, then his knees, then his waist. The waters of the sea threatened to put out the flame the lad so jealously guarded. And then he caught sight of a reef that rose above the waters, and clambered atop it. Soaking and desperate, he stood on that rock and invoked the name of his master. Wondrously, even as the waters rose about him, the reef was never submerged and the flame was kept lit. Once the tide went out again, the lad clambered down and delivered the flame to Saint Maodez.
Between Brittany and Cornwall, Saint Maodez is the patron of over sixty churches. He is venerated at Quimper, Tréguier, Lesneven and Bourges in the Val-de-Loire, where his body is said to rest. His intercessions are invoked especially against headaches, insects, worms and snake-bites, and he is also a patron of schoolteachers, and it is as a schoolteacher (who gets quite a few headaches) especially that I ask his intercession. Holy Father Maodez, venerable schoolmaster, bridge between nations and builder of monasteries, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!
Despite thy royal birth thou didst embrace the monastic life in infancy,
O Father Maodez, boast of ascetics and banisher of snakes.
As we are blessed to have thy precious relics with us to this day,
Pray, O Saint, that we may be worthy of Christ’s mercy
And that our souls may be saved.
St Mawes Church, St Mawes, Cornwall
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