Don Amorth: Our Lady is Satan's enemy

3. Mary against Satan. And we come to the topic that most directly concerns us and which can only be understood in the light of the foregoing. Why is Mary so powerful against the devil? Why does the evil one tremble before the Virgin? If so far we have explained the doctrinal reasons, it is time to say something more immediate, which reflects the experience of all the exorcists.
I begin precisely with the apology that the devil himself was forced to make of the Madonna. Forced by God, he spoke better than any preacher.
In 1823, in Ariano Irpino (Avellino), two famous Dominican preachers, p. Cassiti and p. Pignataro, they were invited to exorcise a boy. Then there was still discussion among theologians on the truth of the Immaculate Conception, which was then proclaimed dogma of faith thirty one years later, in 1854. Well, the two friars imposed on the demon to prove that Mary was Immaculate; and moreover they ordered him to do it by means of a sonnet: a poem of fourteen hendecasyllabic verses, with an obligatory rhyme. Note that the demoniac was a twelve year old and illiterate boy. Immediately Satan uttered these verses:

True Mother I am of a God who is Son and I am daughter of Him, although his Mother.
Ab aeterno was born and he is my Son, in time I was born, yet I am his Mother
- He is my Creator and he is my Son;
I am his creature and I am his mother.
It was a divine prodigy to be my Son an eternal God, and to have me as a Mother
Being is almost common between Mother and Son because being from the Son had the Mother and being from the Mother also had the Son.
Now, if the being of the Son had the Mother, or it must be said that the Son was stained, or without stain the Mother must be said.

Pius IX was moved when, after having proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, he read this sonnet, which was presented to him on that occasion.
Years ago a friend of mine from Brescia, d. Faustino Negrini, who died some years ago while practicing the exorcist ministry at the small sanctuary of the Stella, told me how he forced the devil to make him the apology of the Madonna. He asked him, "Why are you so afraid when I mention the Virgin Mary?" He heard himself answered by the demoniac: "Because he is the humblest creature of all and I am the most proud; she is the most obedient and I am the most rebellious (to God); it is the purest and I am the most filthy ».

Remembering this episode, in 1991, while exorcising a possessed man, I repeated to the devil the words spoken in honor of Mary and I enjoined him (without having the faintest idea of ​​what would have been answered): «The Immaculate Virgin was praised for three virtues. You now have to tell me what the fourth virtue is, so you are so afraid of it ». Immediately I heard myself reply: "It is the only creature that can overcome me entirely, because it has never been touched by the smallest shadow of sin."

If the devil of Mary speaks in this way, what should the exorcists say? I limit myself to the experience we all have: one touches with one's hand how Mary is truly the Mediatrix of graces, because it is always she who obtains liberation from the devil from the Son. When one begins to exorcise a demon, one of those whom the devil really has inside him, one feels insulted, made fun of: «I feel good here; I will never get out of here; you can do nothing against me; you are too weak, you waste your time ... » But little by little Maria enters the field and then the music changes: «And she who wants it, I can't do anything against her; tell her to stop interceding for this person; loves this creature too much; so it's over for me ... »

It has also happened to me several times to feel reproached immediately for the intervention of the Madonna, since the first exorcism: «I was so well here, but it was she who sent you; I know why you came, because she wanted it; if she hadn't intervened, I would never have met you ...
St. Bernard, at the end of his famous Discourse on the aqueduct, on the thread of strictly theological reasoning, concludes with a sculptural phrase: "Mary is all the reason for my hope".
I learned this sentence while as a boy I waited in front of the door of cell no. 5, in San Giovanni Rotondo; it was the cell of Fr. Pious. Then I wanted to study the context of this expression which, at first glance, could appear simply devotional. And I tasted its depth, the truth, the meeting between doctrine and practical experience. So I gladly repeat it to anyone who is in despair or despair, as frequently happens to those affected by evil evils: "Mary is all the reason for my hope."
From her comes Jesus and from Jesus every good. This was the Father's plan; a design that does not change. Every grace passes through the hands of Mary, who obtains that outpouring of the Holy Spirit who liberates, comforts, cheers.
St. Bernard does not hesitate to express these concepts, not a decisive affirmation which marks the culmination of all his speech and which inspired Dante's famous prayer to the Virgin:

«We venerate Mary with all the impetus of our heart, our affections, our desires. So it is He who established that we should receive everything through Mary ».