Prayers and Resolutions for Purity and Chastity
3 min • Digitized on August 17, 2021
From St. Joseph’s Life, Virtues, Privileges, Power, page 326
By Very Rev. Archdeacon Kinane, P.P.
Practical Resolution.
“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.”
To be near Jesus, and to be dear to Jesus, like Mary and Joseph, we must be pure and chaste.
Heaven, the soul of man shall never possess, until she be purer than a sunbeam and whiter than the virgin snow.
Chastity is a special gift of God.
The inspired writer says: “I knew that I could not otherwise be continent except God gave … I went to the Lord and besought him” (Wisd. viii. 21).
Prayer, therefore, is the first means to preserve chastity.
The second means is to avoid every dangerous occasion of sin.
And the third is to subdue our sinful flesh by acts of mortification, and our proud spirit by acts of humility and self-denial.
I resolve, therefore, by God’s grace, to shun, all the days of my life, every occasion which I know from experience to be dangerous to holy purity; and, secondly, every day to practise some little acts of humility and self-denial known to God alone.
O Jesus, grant me the grace to keep my resolutions.
Prayer.
O loving Jesus! make me pure. O sweet Jesus! make me chaste.
To preserve purity, dearer to me than my life, O Jesus, grant me the spirit of prayer.
O merciful Jesus! may I call upon Thee in the dark hour of temptation. Jesus, save me from the foul evil of impurity.
Help me, O blessed Saviour, when I am tempted. May I die, O Jesus, take me out of life, O Lord, but never permit me to fall into mortal sin.
O merciful Saviour, give me a living fear of sin, and the dangerous occasions of sin.
“Pierce thou my flesh with Thy fear.” O Blessed Lord, grant me a horror of pride, and love for humility.
O Saviour, grant me the grace to shun sensuality of all sorts, and to love and practise mortification and self-denial.
St. Joseph, obtain for me from Jesus purity of body and soul.
“Guardian of Virgins, and holy father Joseph, to whose faithful custody Jesus Christ, Innocence itself, and Mary, Virgin of Virgins, were committed, I pray and beseech thee by these dear pledges, Jesus and Mary, that, being preserved from all uncleanness, I may, with spotless mind, pure heart, and chaste body, ever serve Jesus and Mary all the days of my life.”
Virgin most pure, Virgin most chaste, Virgin immaculate, pray for me, and obtain for me purity of soul and body.
Practice.
To-day practise four acts of self-denial: of the eyes, the tongue, the taste or appetite, and the will.
Aspiration.
O Jesus! make my heart and soul, my mind and body, as pure and chaste as the angels of God in Paradise.