O Jesus, Lover of chastity, Mary, Mother most pure, and St. Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin, to you I come at this hour, begging you to plead with God for me.
I earnestly wish to be pure in thought, word, and deed in imitation of your own holy purity. Obtain for me, then, a deep sense of modesty which will be reflected in my external conduct.
Protect my eyes, the windows of my soul, from anything that might dim the luster of a heart that must mirror only Christlike purity. And when the Bread of Angels becomes my food in Holy Communion, seal my heart forever against the suggestions of sinful pleasures.
Heart of Jesus, Fountain of all purity, have mercy on us. Amen.
This much-loved Prayer for Purity gathers the whole Holy Family — Jesus "Lover of chastity," Mary "Mother most pure," and Joseph the "chaste guardian of the Virgin" — and asks their intercession for the hard, lifelong virtue of purity. It is a prayer for every state of life, for purity is not the calling of the unmarried alone but of everyone: the chastity proper to one’s state, of body and of heart.
The prayer is strikingly practical. It does not ask merely to avoid sin but to imitate the purity of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and it names the ordinary battleground: the senses. It begs "a deep sense of modesty" that shows in outward conduct, and above all the custody of the eyes — "protect my eyes, the windows of my soul." The ancient wisdom of the Church is that impurity almost always enters first through the eyes and the imagination, and that the guard set there is the guard of the heart.
Its high point is Eucharistic. When "the Bread of Angels becomes my food in Holy Communion," the soul asks that this closest union with Christ would "seal" the heart against temptation. Our Lord Himself joined purity to the vision of God: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8). Purity, in the end, is not mere self-restraint but a clear window through which the soul beholds its Lord.
O Jesus, Lover of chastity, Mary, Mother most pure, and St. Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin, to you I come at this hour, begging you to plead with God for me.
I earnestly wish to be pure in thought, word, and deed in imitation of your own holy purity. Obtain for me, then, a deep sense of modesty which will be reflected in my external conduct.
Protect my eyes, the windows of my soul, from anything that might dim the luster of a heart that must mirror only Christlike purity. And when the Bread of Angels becomes my food in Holy Communion, seal my heart forever against the suggestions of sinful pleasures.
Heart of Jesus, Fountain of all purity, have mercy on us. Amen.
O Jesus, Lover of chastity, Mary, Mother most pure, and St. Joseph, chaste guardian of the Virgin, to you I come at this hour, begging you to plead with God for me.
I earnestly wish to be pure in thought, word, and deed in imitation of your own holy purity. Obtain for me, then, a deep sense of modesty which will be reflected in my external conduct.
Protect my eyes, the windows of my soul, from anything that might dim the luster of a heart that must mirror only Christlike purity. And when the Bread of Angels becomes my food in Holy Communion, seal my heart forever against the suggestions of sinful pleasures.
Heart of Jesus, Fountain of all purity, have mercy on us. Amen.