Many mansions

Fr Thomas Crean on The Angelic Warfare Confraternity

Jesus Christ has told us that in His Father’s house, there are many mansions. We often interpret these words as referring to the different degrees of glory enjoyed by the saints in heaven, but we may also see them as a description of the Church on earth. As St Thomas Aquinas pointed out when commenting on this verse, “God’s house is twofold, the Church militant and triumphant.” In fact, one of the things that impressed St Augustine when he was still looking into the Church from outside was how various were the paths pursued by Catholics within the unity of a common faith: “I saw a full Church”, he remarked, “and one went this way and another went that” (Confessions 8.1).

One way in which this diversity manifests itself is by the existence of different confraternities and sodalities, when various of Christ’s faithful freely come together to pursue some common, spiritual end; for example, to foster devotion to the Sacred Heart or to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each of these groups is like a chamber in the great house of the Church on earth.

One such association that ought to be better known is the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare. Founded by a Dominican priest in Belgium in the 1600s, its purpose is to promote the virtue of chastity among its members, under the patronage of St Thomas Aquinas, commonly known as ‘the angelic doctor’. But what exactly is it, and how did it begin?

Its remote origins lie in a famous incident in St Thomas’s own early life. His family, who were of the nobility, were unhappy with their son’s choice of vocation. They had destined him for the wealthy abbey of Monte Cassino, but he elected instead to enter the Order of Friars Preachers, or Dominicans. In accordance with the vigorous manners of the time, some of his brothers therefore seized young Fra Tomasso when he was on a journey and led him

ThomasAquinus:“twosalientfeaturesofAquinas’sholinesswerepurityandhumility” back to the family castle, there to keep him prisoner until he should learn wisdom. When both persuasion and threats failed to change his mind, the brothers tried a baser expedient.

All the early biographies of the saint describe how they introduced a beautiful young woman into the bedroom where their younger brother, then aged about nineteen, was confined. As William of Tocco, who lived in the same priory as St Thomas for a while, explains: “They sent the loveliest girl they could find, adorned with the seductive arts of a courtesan, so she might lure him into her sin by her looks, caresses, and teasing gestures.” Whether she went there with some pretext to engage him in conversation, and if so, quite how long it took the young religious to realise what was going on, are not clear. We are told, though, that when he did grasp the situation, he felt some momentary temptation, but then acted decisively. In perhaps the only violent act of his life, he took a burning log from the fireplace and used it to drive the unfortunate girl out of his cell. He then scorched the sign of the Cross into the wall and falling on his knees, prayed for the strength to preserve his virginity.

It may have been already late in the day, as the biographers say that he prolonged his prayer till he fell asleep. What happened next could be called either a dream sent from God, or a vision. As he slept, he saw two angels come to him holding a cord, which they tied around his waist, and he heard them say: “Behold, we come from God to gird you, as you have asked, with a girdle of chastity which will not be broken by any combat. And what cannot be merited by human power is now granted to you as a gift from God’s bounty.”

Friar Thomas felt the angels bind him with the cord so tightly that he woke up crying aloud in pain; but when people came into the room to ask what was happening, he would not tell them. He kept the vision and the angelic words a secret until just before his death, when he related them to his socius and confessor, Reginald of Piperno. Reginald, who had been his confessor as well as socius, saw that the promise of the angels, that St Thomas ‘girdle of chastity’ would not be broken by any combat, had come true.

At the canonisation procedure, he affirmed on oath that, “he did not remember hearing even once in Thomas’s confession that he had consented to a single carnal thought”, and added that the saint “had very rarely experienced even the first stirrings of this passion”.

The cord that Aquinas had worn was given to the Master-General of his Order; it is now shown in the Dominican church in Chieri near Turin.

So much for the background. For several hundred years, the story remained as an inspiration, but no more. Then in the 16th century, an Italian priest caused copies of the cord of St Thomas to be made and blessed, but for purely private use. The confraternity of the Angelic Warfare came into being about seventy years afterwards. On March 7 1649, Fr Francis Duerwerders OP received its first members, at the university of Louvain in Belgium. A papal bull published by Innocent X in 1654 already mentions the confraternity, and states that its purpose is, “to gain victory under St Thomas’s protection in the hard combat for chastity and against temptations, and to promote devotion to the holy doctor”. In 1727, Benedict XIII gave to all Dominican provinces the right to receive new members (see the Bullarium Romanum, volume 12 of Mainardi’s edition, p. 203). The confraternity has existed ever since: among its notable members are St Louis Gonzaga, and the 20th century Dominican tertiary, Pier Giorgio Frassati, who is due to be canonised this summer.

The obligations of membership are not onerous. Members undertake to recite two short prayers for chastity each day, one attributed to St Thomas, the other addressed to him. They also recite fifteen Hail Marys daily for the same intention. They wear a thin cord with fifteen knots around their waist day and night (Pius XI also gave the possibility of wearing the medal of the confraternity instead.) The number fifteen is no doubt in honour of our Lady of the Rosary, though sometimes each of the Hail Marys is prayed for a distinct intention, such as purification of the memory, of the conscience, of sight, and so on. Finally, members resolve to live chastely in accordance with the requirements of different states in life, whether as single, betrothed, married or widowed: but this is not a vow, and does not add anything to the obligation of any Christian to avoid whatever is contrary to purity.

Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical that he wrote in 1923 for the six hundredth anniversary of St Thomas’s canonisation, observed that two salient features of Aquinas’s holiness were purity and humility. Membership of the Angelic Warfare Confraternity is a way of imitating both these virtues: purity, as is obvious, but also humility, both because of the daily reminder to ask for God’s grace to keep the sixth and ninth commandments, and because of the simplicity of the means employed.

For if the sacraments have as one their purposes, as St Thomas himself argued, that of training us in humility by causing us to seek something spiritual, namely sanctifying grace, through the use of material things, the same must also be true of the sacramentals, through which it is actual graces that are sought.

The same pope draws our attention to the relation between purity and wisdom, both in general and in Aquinas’s life in particular. We read in Scripture that wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins (Wis. 1:4). While cleverness can co-exist with mortal sin, the gift of wisdom cannot. But without this gift, we soon fall into mistakes about the meaning and requirements of God’s word. So, having alluded to the trial to which Aquinas’s brothers submitted him in the family castle, the pope concludes: “If the purity of Thomas therefore had failed in the extreme peril into which it had fallen, it is very probable that the Church would never have had her Angelic Doctor.” He therefore asked the world’s bishops to propagate the confraternity, especially among their seminarians.

Yet while sexuality is at all times, as Mgr Ronald Knox once remarked, the stronghold of fallen nature, it is a commonplace that external temptations against chastity are more prevalent today than they have been at least since the overthrowing of paganism and quite possibly exceed Pope Pius XI’s worst nightmares. While the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare is not the only response to this emergency, it is a particularly suitable and effective one. It may just be a confraternity whose time has come.

I am grateful for the historical research done into this subject by the Fathers of the Fraternity of St Vincent Ferrer, which I have made use of in this short article. Readers wishing to learn more about the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare may like to consult the site www.angelicwarfareconfraternity.org/ The cord or medal of St Thomas may be acquired from, among other places, the Rosary Shrine in north London or the Carmelite community of Lanherne in Cornwall.