“Saint Bernard tells us that the devil fears Mary more than he fears God. This statement is at first puzzling, but the doctor mellifluous (honey-sweet doctor) explains his claim as follows: The devil is pride incarnate. To be defeated in his plans by a humble virgin, and a woman to boot, is for him more humiliating than to be defeated by God, for he knows God’s power and strength. Being the incarnation of pride, being the one who said, ‘I will not serve,’ it is humiliation that he dreads most.”

—Alice von Hildebrand, Man and Woman: A Divine Invention, p. 92

Join us as we explore one of Alice von Hildebrand’s most poignant works, Man and Woman: A Divine Invention. In part four of a multi-part podcast miniseries, today’s episode dives into Chapter 4: “With Mary: From Defeat to Victory.” Our discussion today explores Alice von Hildebrand’s perspective on various topics of Mariology, and the central role that Our Lady plays in the spiritual life, in salvation history, and in the cultivation of virtue.

“This book is a profound meditation on the superiority of being over bustling, of love over the impress of one’s will, and of receptivity to God over what we take to be our creative ingenuity. As such it poses challenges to those creatures we call men and women, but in different ways. Dr. von Hildebrand reminds men that, apart from the genius for personal and the concrete that women possess, they become architects of heresy and inhumanity. She reminds women, meanwhile, of their at once humble and high calling to motherhood, physical or spiritual. It is a work steeped in the reverence she enjoins upon us all.”

—Anthony Esolen [from the endorsement of the book]

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