Prayer to the Blessed Virgin for Purity

Among all the saints, the Church turns first to Mary for the gift of purity, because she alone was preserved from every stain of sin from the first instant of her existence. This prayer gathers her great titles of purity from the Litany of Loreto — "Mother most pure, Mother most chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother undefiled" — and asks the Immaculate Mother to make the soul’s heart like her own.

Its foundation is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, solemnly defined by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1854 in the bull Ineffabilis Deus: that Mary, by a singular grace and in view of the merits of Christ, was preserved free from original sin from the moment of her conception. Four years later, at Lourdes, she confirmed it herself: "I am the Immaculate Conception." The soul struggling for purity therefore flees to the one creature in whom purity was never once broken.

The prayer follows the pattern the saints counsel for chastity. It begs custody of the eyes, thoughts, and affections; it makes Mary’s name a weapon in the instant of temptation; and it consecrates body and soul to her Immaculate Heart — the devotion Our Lady herself asked for at Fatima. It closes with the invocation of the Miraculous Medal, "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee," and looks to the reward Our Lord promised: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8).