The Angelic Warfare Confraternity is a supernatural brotherhood or fellowship of men and women bound to one another in love and dedicated to pursuing and promoting chastity together under the powerful patronage of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It was the ancient practice of the Confraternity to pray these fifteen Hail Marys by going through one’s whole psychology and offering a Hail Mary and a special petition for each one of the “powers of the soul.” Today, for those members who are seeking extra prayer for healing, deliverance, and growth in chastity and purity, the Confraternity offers the following fifteen petitions to go with each of the fifteen Hail Marys.
Opening Prayer of St. Thomas for Purity
Dear Jesus, I know that every perfect gift, and especially that of chastity, depends on the power of Your providence. Without You a mere creature can do nothing. Therefore, I beg You to defend by Your grace the chastity and purity of my body and soul. And if I have ever sensed or imagined anything that could stain my chastity and purity, blot it out, Supreme Lord of my powers, that I may advance with a pure heart in Your love and service, offering myself on the most pure altar of Your divinity all the days of my life. Amen.
- Dear Jesus, bless our social and cultural climate. Grant that our society may be purified of everything contrary to chastity, and that we may have the strength to resist the pressures of prevailing distortions of human sexuality. “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have conquered the world” (Jn. 16:33). “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our relationships. Grant that they will be holy, healthy, and honorable at all times. “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart” (1 Pet. 1:22). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our efforts at modesty. Grant that how we dress and carry ourselves may veil what should be veiled, and give us the strength to resist evil fashions and the glamor of sin. “Do not be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our five senses. Grant that the things we see, the music and jokes we hear, our food and drink, and the encounters we have through touch may all be pure and holy. “Seek the things that are above” (Col. 3:1). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our sensuality. Grant that our impulses may not go after base pleasures but will be freed by Your wisdom and inflamed for what is good. “In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Heb. 12:4). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our imagination. Grant that we may be preserved from the fantasies and daydreams that defile us, that all impure images may vanish, and that we may be protected from all the assaults of demons. “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (Eph. 6:11, 4:23). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our memory. Grant that no dark memories from our past may haunt us but let Your light shine within us to fill us with a healing hope in You. “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 Jn. 3:1). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our power of estimation. Grant that we may quickly sense dangers to chastity, instinctively flee from them, and that we may never turn away from higher and more difficult goods for the sake of sinful self-indulgence. “For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” (Mk. 8:36). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our affectivity. Grant that we may love chastity and rejoice in it, that all of our emotions may be in harmony with what is right, and that no sadness, discouragement, fear, insecurity, or loneliness may afflict us unto sexual sin. “For the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly passions and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age” (Titus 2:11-12). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our intellect. Grant that it may be purged of all false beliefs and all misunderstandings of human sexuality, and that the good angels may flood our intellects with thoughts that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our will. Grant that it may never be opposed by our sensuality, that it may never be conflicted in the moment, but that it may hold fast to chastity no matter how difficult it may be. “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ…was not Yes and No; but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:19-20). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our conscience. Grant that it may be swift to judge what is chaste, swifter to execute it, and preserved completely from the suggestions of demons. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:14). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, bless our hearts. Grant that the place where Christ abides in us with the Father and the Spirit may become the place where we live with the Holy Trinity in friendship. “Jesus answered him, ‘If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’” (Jn. 14:23). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, grant us the grace of self-surrender. Grant that we may hand over to God nothing less than our whole lives. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk. 23:46). Hail Mary…
- Dear Jesus, give us your love. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10). “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Hail Mary…
The Prayer to St. Thomas for Purity
Chosen lily of innocence, pure St. Thomas, who kept chaste the robe of baptism and became an angel in the flesh after being girded by two angels, I implore you to commend me to Jesus, the Spotless Lamb, and to Mary, the Queen of Virgins. Gentle protector of my purity, ask them that I, who wear the holy sign of your victory over the flesh, may also share your purity, and after imitating you on earth may at last come to be crowned with you among the angels. Amen.
“[T]he holy sign…” refers to the cord of St. Thomas, a thin cord with fifteen knots in it and blessed by a Dominican priest. It is worn around the waist underneath one’s clothing. All Confraternity members wear the blessed cord or a medal of St. Thomas as continuously as reasonably possible for the rest of their lives.
St. Thomas Aquinas is a powerful patron for chastity because in his own life he received a special grace of chastity and purity and is ready now in heaven to share it with others. His parents so vehemently opposed his decision to become a Dominican that they had him arrested by his own brothers and jailed in one of the family castles. They would not release him until he relented, and they attempted many times to persuade him to change his mind. For a full year he refused to relent. Finally, after becoming tired of waiting, the brothers of St. Thomas conceived one last plan. They were certain that physical temptation would drive him to break his vow of chastity, after which he would surely abandon his religious vocation.
So one night, the brothers introduced a scantily clad prostitute into the room where St. Thomas was being held. The plan did not work as intended. Immediately, St. Thomas snatched a burning brand from the hearth, drove the woman out of the room, slammed the door behind her, and emblazoned the sign of the cross on the door with the red-hot brand. He then fell to his knees with tears of thanksgiving and prayed to be preserved in his chastity, purity, and intention to live the religious life.
According to the records of his canonization, Thomas fell at once into a mystical sleep and had a vision. Two angels came to him from heaven and bound a cord around his waist, saying, “On God’s behalf, we gird you with the girdle of chastity, a girdle which no attack will ever destroy.” In the records of his canonization, many different witnesses who knew St. Thomas at different points in his life remarked about his evidently high degree of purity and chastity. The angels’ gift preserved St. Thomas from sexual temptation and bestowed upon him an enduring purity that ennobled all his thoughts and actions.
These prayers and explanations were taken with permission from the Angelic Warfare Confraternity website.
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