Novena To Saint Boniface of Tarsus (To overcome impurity)

Repeat the following Novena prayers every day for 9 consecutive days.

[Translated by David A. Gilbert, ©2014 David A. Gilbert; Composed by José Manuel del Valle y Araujo, Priest of this Archdiocese, Mexico: 1817. In the office on the corner of Tacuba and Saint Dominic.]

Act of Contrition

Lord and God of mercies,
God by nature and Man for my healing,
from whom so many times I have turned away my face,
only to see the terrifying asps of my sins,
deaf to Your call, blind to Your wounds, and without gratitude.
I regret with all my heart
of having offended You with such enormous faults and bold offenses
and for having wasted my life in a place of such bitterness.
I know that there is insufficient hell, although it lasts forever,
for me to pay for my infinite faults,
repenting of which I ask a thousand pardons through Your infinite mercy,
through Your five wounds,
and through the merits and sorrows of Your afflicted Mother, my Lady.
With Your grace and Your help,
I firmly intend to amend myself.
Have mercy, my God, have mercy.

Prayer for Every Day

Lord most high and tremendous Majesty,
that with love alone created the beauty of Your heaven
with its nine choirs of spiritual inhabitants,
and the beautiful machine of the world
with all species of living things.
I worship and adore You infinitely,
and confess that You are my God, my Creator, my Conserver and Redeemer.
And I offer You, as the work of Your own hand, all angels and men;
in order that, seeing in each one the image of Your own majesty,
You may be glorified in them all:
and principally in Your glorious martyr Saint Boniface,
who after having burned in the fires of lust (better to say of hell),
with Your help was purified in the fire of charity like pure gold.
And I ask You, through Your most precious blood,
the remedy for those wretched ones who find themselves in a bad state;
in order that seeing the infinite price that they cost You,
You might give them help and raise them up with Your blessed hand
and hear the supplications that Your beloved martyr Saint Boniface makes
in Your presence for those poor ones,
and by Your mercy, free me from such misery.

Amen.

Here pray the Chaplet of the Five Wounds or make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.
 

Day 1

Courageous martyr of God, glorious Boniface:
if once so miserable and weak,
you saw yourself ensnared in the sad chains of impurity,
you knew how to obtain the aids
which the liberal hand of Omnipotence gave you
in order to come out of the disgusting quagmire of such an infamous vice.
Prostrate at your feet I beg you to offer to the eternal Father
the ardent desires, loving steps,
and fervent preaching of His only begotten Son
for those wretched ones who, cast in the mud of dishonorable love,
have closed their ears to the calls of the Divine Shepherd;
and free us from such pestilent harm.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 2

Admirable penitent martyr of Jesus Christ, Boniface,
who having received the Divine call,
resolved to seek God by the road of repentance,
with alms, fasting and mortifications,
even leaving the house of your perdition,
humbly I beseech you to offer with us to the Holy Trinity,
the holy abstinence, long fasts,
and continual prayer of Christ our life,
with the total poverty and labor of His childhood,
for those poor souls, forgetful of such mercies,
that the devil holds in the dungeons of indecent love:
that they may enjoy the Divine light by your intercession.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 3

O repentant preacher of Divine Mercy,
that in the midst of the barbarity of the tyrants,
and the wicked mob of unbelievers,
was the holy herald of the faith of Jesus Christ,
by whose preaching five hundred and fifty of them were converted:
I humbly beg you to offer to the Undivided Trinity
those sighs of so much pain
and those tears shed by our Divine teacher Jesus,
lifted up on the cross,
for the salvation of man;
for all my brothers that find themselves
in the misfortune of a dangerous situation,
that recovered they may guard the pearl of chastity
according to their state in life.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 4

Oh most holy Boniface,
previously a dead and barren seed because of guilt,
afterwards an upright tree of sanctity,
you bore admirable fruit,
even to the one that had been the scandal of your conscience;
thus you merited to see yourself already
on the throne of the holy martyrs:
deign to offer to God, Three and One,
in the thurible of your heart,
that most fervent prayer and copious sweat of blood
that the innocent lamb Jesus shed in the garden,
with those acts of infinite value
with which He resigned Himself to the will of His Father,
for those poor souls that possess an unclean spirit;
in order that repentant they send to God
in sorrowful acts of true contrition,
like smoke, the fragrant prayer of their penance.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 5

O wonderful repentant Boniface!
Saint so perfect in penance,
that even at the beginning of your conversion,
as a true soldier, on first arriving you strengthened twenty martyrs
who at the stake suffered horrible torments;
in such a manner, that inspired by your valiant cries,
they showered the plaza of the city of Tarsus with the torrents of their blood:
I humbly beg that through those poured-out choirs of martyrs,
and your ardent zeal, you offer before the throne of God those ropes and chains,
with which the blessed hands of our Jesus were bound,
and the shame that He suffered from tribunal to tribunal,
for those unfortunate souls, miserable slaves,
that find themselves tied with the devil’s chains
in the labyrinth of indecent love;
so that freed with your patronage,
they may walk in the grace of God on the road of perfection.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 6

O illustrious martyr of Jesus Christ,
that suffered being thrown headlong into a huge caldron of boiling pitch,
as much fleeing the fire of lust
as for uniting yourself to the fire of Divine love:
I beg you to offer the pains that you suffered
in such torment along with the unthinkable pain
that my Lord Jesus Christ had from the excessive blow
of that cruel slap that knocked him down to the earth,
with all the heaven of an Incarnate God,
for those brothers of mine who the devil has marked with the seal of unchastity;
that freed from such vile servitude,
they may raise their eyes to where true liberty is,
that is the homeland of glory.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 7

O generous captain of those that renounce the transitory pleasures of this life,
who, to better follow the banner of the Crucified,
allowed your sacred body be torn in insufferable pain
with nails and claws of iron:
I beg you to offer these same torments,
united to the excruciating pain that our Jesus suffered
at the sad moment of His meeting with His afflicted mother, my sorrowful Queen,
in order that this tender interchange between those two pure lovers may be,
by your intercession,
the two-edged sword that separates and severs
the deeply rooted relationships of worldly lovers
and at the same time pierces their unrepentant hearts
with a true sorrow and amendment of their sins,
in order to die in grace.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 8

O most holy youth and strong leader of sorrowful sinners!
Brother Boniface, that having made a living sacrifice of yourself
on the altar of a public marketplace,
sacrificed to God [by a martyrdom of beheading] your valiant spirit,
confessing the true faith, not only with your lips,
but also with a new mouth that the tyrant made in your throat,
the rising plumes of blood serving you as tongue:
I beseech you to offer from the throne on which you find yourself in glory,
that death and your glorious confession,
united with those five rubies,
that on the wood of the cross
the tyrant made of the five precious wounds of my beloved Jesus,
for those miserable sinners,
corrupted with the filthy leprosy of impure transgressions,
that they may leave the sores of such grievous sickness;
so that healed by confession and penance,
they may be participants of the fruit of redemption unto their salvation.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Day 9

Finally, since you find yourself, O blessed Boniface,
with the prize of your virtues on that sovereign throne,
overflowing in such sweetness, enjoying God Three and One;
since you have such closeness to the Infinite Abyss of Mercy,
give to us your devotees the reward of such happiness as you possess:
and offer in our name to the Undivided Trinity
the abundant plentitude of that Divine balsam
of the precious blood of Jesus Christ,
in the chalice of gold of the pure heart
of our great and sorrowful Queen Mary, for those Christians,
that without fear of the strict accounting that is expected of them,
drink the bitter chalice of impurity,
whose false sweetness ends in the gall of condemnation,
breeding naked demons,
just as that of your Divine Teacher,
received in the Holy Sacrament,
produces fresh lilies for your eternal joy;
grant them to know the gravity of their faults,
the pains of hell, and the certainty of death
and shed on us all the dew of your benefits,
freeing us from the ugliness of sensuality
that we may enjoy you eternally in glory.

Amen.

The Stations of the Cross, or Chaplet of the Five Wounds.

Prayer for Every Day

Most high Father of mercies,
whose inexhaustible treasures
Your only begotten Son purchased for us by His death:
place those Divine eyes (before seeing our guilt)
on the most holy altar of Mount Calvary.
See there the most holy victim who offered Himself on that gibbet
and You will see the innocent lamb between anguish and affliction,
celebrating that Holy Mass of a passion so sorrowful,
just to take away the most justified anger that my sins have caused You.
Notice, my God, that infinite love,
with which loving You as His Father,
He begs You to pardon me.
See those tears, not only for the pain that He suffered,
but for the tenderness with which He loves us, shed by His eyes;
better to say by two heavens, that with the copious showers of those pearls
irrigate the dry soil of my ingratitude.
Look, loving Father, at that innocent dove of His most holy Mother,
that pierced with so many swords, as many as were the pains of the Son,
if not to say how many were, but will be the sins of the world;
may the depths of the compassion of the Son and the Mother,
which in such a sorrowful spectacle were knocking at the doors of Your mercy,
move You to pity: I humbly offer to You this great abundance of infinite merits.
And I offer You at the same time in the hearts of JESUS AND MARY
that charity with which, loving us from all eternity,
You gave us the Only Begotten of Your Understanding;
and also the infinite love with which Your most holy Son was made man,
shed His blood and accepted death;
along with the ineffable charity
with which the Holy Spirit worked the incarnation of that same Word,
and which He shed and continually sheds over all Christians;
with all the most excellent merits of the Queen of heaven,
and the ineffable love with which You are loved
and she loves us miserable sinners,
along with the vast sea of so much blood which so many martyrs have shed;
in order that, forgetting our ingratitude,
You do not deny us Your efficacious assistance:
so that helped by Your grace we may live as sons of such a Father,
as brothers of Your only begotten Son,
and as orphans protected by the kindness of most holy Mary,
until we enjoy You in eternal glory.

Amen.

Every day, after the Stations or the Chaplet of the Wounds, two Salves to the most Holy Virgin.
 

LAUS DEO

The Excellent and illustrious Rev. Dr. D. Alonso Nuñez de Haro y Peralta, Archbishop of this holy Metropolitan Church, conceded eighty days of indulgence to all and whatsoever persons, for each time that they pray devoutly the Novena to the glorious martyr Saint Boniface; asking God for the exaltation of our holy Catholic faith, the extirpation of heresies, peace and concord among Christian princes, victory over the infidels and heretics, and the other necessities of the Church, as confirmed in his decree of February 28, 1777.