“Finding himself then full of uncertainty concerning the experiences of the demons and of himself with Jesus and Mary, this enemy of the human race questioned himself by what power he had been vanquished and put to flight in his attempts to ruin the dangerously sick and the dying and in his other encounters with the Queen of heaven. As he could not clear the mystery for himself, he resolved to consult those of his associates who excelled in malice and astuteness. He gave forth a roar or tremendous howl in hell, using the language understood by the demons, and called together those who were subject to him. All of them having been gathered together, he made them a speech, saying: ‘My ministers and companions, who have always followed me in my just opposition, you well know that in the first state in which we were placed by the Creator of all things, we acknowledged Him as the universal source of all our being and thus also respected Him.

“‘But as soon as, to the detriment of our beauty and pre-eminence, so close to the Deity, He imposed upon us the command, that we adore and serve the person of the Word, in the human form, which He intended to assume, we resisted his will. For although I knew, that this reverence was due Him as God, yet as He chose to unite Himself to the nature of man, so ignoble and inferior to mine, I could not bear to be subject to Him, nor could I bear to see, that He did not favour me rather than the creature man. He not only commanded us to adore Him, but also to recognize as our superior a Woman, his Mother, a mere earthly creature. To these grievances I took exception and you with me’.”

(from ‘The Mystical City of God’, by Ven. Mary of Agreda, volume III, chapter 20)