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Question

Good morning father,

I would like to thank you for this meritorious work that is helping me so much in growing in my faith, and I also take the opportunity to ask you a query of dogmatic/Marian content.

As I was researching the importance of Mary for the Church and for us Catholics I came across a fact, curious in itself, that beautifully confirms the dogma of the Immaculate Conception proclaimed by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1854. I’m talking about a poetic piece in blank hendecasyllables composed by none other than the devil, during an exorcism. What’s curious about it is that this exorcism happened in 1823, 31 years before the pronunciation of the dogma. In Adriano Irpino, province of Avellino, two Dominican preachers like yourself were called to exorcize a twelve years old boy: like the good Gascons that they were, they obliged the devil possessing that illiterate boy to praise the Blessed Mother. I’ve read that during that time there were discussions in the Church about the possibility to officialize the dogma. Under constraint, the devil poured out the sonnet which I report below:

I am the true Mother of a God who is Son,

And I am His daughter, although his Mother;

He was born from eternity, and is my Son,

I was born within time, and yet I am his Mother.

He is my creator, and is my Son,

I am His creation, and His mother;

It was a divine marvel that my Son

Was an eternal God, who had Me as His Mother.

Our being is almost shared between Mother and Son

Because the Mother received her existence from her Son,

And the Son also received His existence from his Mother.

If, then, the Son received His existence from His Mother,

We either must say that the Son was stained by the Mother,

Or we must say that the Mother is Immaculate.

His Holiness Pius IX was informed of this story only after the pronunciation of the dogma, and it is reported that it really moved him.

Now coming to my question. The devil is the father of lies, and no one should ever dialogue with him; nonetheless, I’m sure that there is truth in this sonnet which was undoubtedly recited at a great cost by the evil spirit. However, I didn’t quite understand the third and fourth stanzas.

Thanks for your disponibility, please remember me in your prayers, especially in the ones to the Blessed Virgin. I’ll remember you in mine.

Kind regards,

Guido

The answer from father Angelo

Dear Guido,

1. That sonnet has passed into history.

This is not the place to investigate the science of demons, nor the veracity of this fact that sees Dominican friars as protagonists.

That sonnet is in front of everyone, telling the truth about Mary and her exemption from original sin since the first instant of her existence.

2.  This is the meaning of the third stanza: Mother and Son, both of them, share a similar creatural existence.

The Mother has the creatural existence that was given to her from the Son, because He is God, on account of His divine nature.

And the Son, in His human nature, received creaturely existence through the mother. 

Their existence as creatures is “almost shared”. That almost is fundamental: in fact, the Son’s existence is eternal because he is God.

3. The fourth stanza proclaims the immaculate conception of Our Lady. It says that if the Mother had inherited original sin like all other women, then even the Son would have received a human nature contaminated by sin. But since the Son wasn’t stained in his human nature, it can only mean that this purity was inherited by his mother, which is defined as immaculate for this specific reason.

I thank you for sharing this sonnet, surely unknown to many of our visitors.

I will gladly pray to Our Lord and the Immaculate Virgin for you.

I bless you.

Father Angelo