I discovered a very intriguing woman recently, Princess Alice, mother-in-law to the current queen of England. She was considered an outcast and a beautiful example of how sometimes the “least” of us are willing to remain faithful, take risks, and do the unexpected.
As an adult and following several periods of upheaval and military coups, she was essentially a refugee. She had a “nervous breakdown” and was taken from her children forcibly to an insane asylum in Switzerland where she was treated by Sigmund Freud. After being diagnosed with paranoid Schizophrenia, she was subjected to abominable procedures.
Despite being mentally ill, Princess Alice went on to be used by God in remarkable ways. Following the exile from her own family, she lived in a small flat in Athens and devoted herself to social justice and helping the poor. She worked for the Red Cross in soup kitchens, used her royal status to fly out medical supplies, organized orphanages, and a nursing circuit for the poor. She converted to Greek Orthodox and became a nun. It is said that her habit consisted of a drab, gray robe.
She was honored as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” at the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem for having hidden Jews in her house. She was also named a Hero of the Holocaust by the British government.
Her son, Prince Phillip, is quoted as saying “I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in anyway special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it a perfectly normal human reaction to fellow beings in distress.”
When asked how she was able to overcome such adversity, she was quoted as saying “God was always with me.”