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.
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.
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.
