Gabriel Francis Powers, a biographer, said of Mother Maddalena:
Her brevity of speech—a stalwart Roman mode, bequeathed, as it were, by the great ancient world of pregnant, concise Latin—was furthermore confirmed in her by the enforced silence of the Rule. She had grown to speak very little, and in a few words to say much.   Added to this, she was silent because she was praying; when any of the Sisters approached to speak with her, she almost invariably motioned with her hand: “Wait a moment, child!” Often they knew by the beads between her fingers that she was finishing an Ave Maria or a decade; then her gentle and courteous countenance was turned to hear them… There was no affectation in her kindness: it was genuine and entire. Eyes so deep-knowing and so compassionate as hers watch incessantly for the trials and sorrows of those around them. She saw and knew and could comfort. She even departed from the law of silence she valued so highly to open for any poor troubled heart or soul the harbor of consolation.      Woman of the Bentivoglio