Four lines to the man into whose keeping God placed Innocence itself and the Virgin of virgins, asking to serve them both 'with spotless mind, pure heart and chaste body'.
Virginum custos et pater, sancte Ioseph, cuius fideli custodiae ipsa Innocentia Christus Iesus et Virgo virginum Maria commissa fuit; te per hoc utrumque carissimum pignus, Iesum et Mariam, obsecro et obtestor, ut me, ab omni immunditia praeservatum, mente incontaminata, puro corde et casto corpore Iesu et Mariae semper facias castissime famulari. Amen.
Guardian of virgins, and holy father Joseph, to whose faithful custody Christ Jesus, 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 most chastely all the days of my life. Amen.
Daily by those under vows; in temptation against purity; on Wednesdays.
The argument of this prayer is one sentence long and it is unanswerable: God entrusted to Joseph's faithful keeping two things beyond price — Christ, who is Innocence itself, and Mary, the Virgin of virgins — and by those two pledges he is asked to keep the one praying clean.
It is the prayer traditionally said by those under vows of chastity, and by anyone asking for purity of life. Pius IX indulgenced it in 1877. The Latin and English are the Raccolta's of 1910.
One hundred days, once a day — Pius IX, 4 February 1877 (Raccolta, 1910, no. 304).
