the angelic warfare

That glorious victory gained by St. Thomas in favor of virginal purity, is well known. It was to it that he first owed the title of “Angel.” Later on the same was again accorded him, on account of his angelic wisdom.

After that victory, two angels appeared and girded him a celestial cord, saying: “Behold, we grid thee by the command of God with the girdle of chastity, which henceforth will never be imperiled. What human strength cannot obtain, is now bestowed upon thee as a celestial gift.” Thomas wore that girdle till the end of his life, at which time he discovered to his friend, Reginald of Piperno, the grace he had received. The heavenly girdle was presented to the ancient monastery of Vercelli in Piedmont, St. Thomas’ mother-house, by John of Vercelli, who entered upon the Office of General of the Order in 1274, the year of the saints’ death. There the sacred relic remained, even in spite of the efforts of the holy Pontiff, Pius V., to place it among the treasures of the Eternal City, until the suppression of the monastery under Napoleon I. The Prior of Vercelli, at that time took it with him intending to bestow it upon the first monastery that would be restored in the province. He did so when at Chieri, near Turin, a house of the Order was reopened, and since that time St. Thomas’ girdle has continued in its possession.

It is formed of many fine threads, but of what material the sharpest eye in unable to decide. One end has a double loop through which the cord is drawn in girding. The part that goes around the waist is flat, somewhat wider than a flattened straw, the other part consists of two fine, four corned cords, which are tied into fifteen knots all alike and of peculiar make. The whole length of the girdle is not quite one and a half meters (a meter= 39.37 inches). The color, originally white is, through age and the repeated touching of other girdles, somewhat brown or rather pearl-color.

About the year 1580 Father Cyprian Uberti, Inquisitor of that vicinity, in his love for St. Thomas and his zeal for holy purity, began to make girdles similar to the holy relic, to which they were touched and then distributed as a safeguard of chastity. He may have been incited thereto by miraculous girding of the saintly Columba of Trochazano, of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. She had come off victorious from a great danger that threatened her chastity. In a fierce temptation against holy purity, which she had taken upon herself to free another, she invoked St. Thomas, and was favored by an apparition of the saint, who caused her to be girded by two angels.

Under date of March 13, 1644, the rector of the Jesuit college at Vercelli wrote as follows: “Whole volumes could be filled with the favors that have flowed from the girdle of Saint Thomas; and I know of graces bestowed upon persons of all ages and both sexes that could be attributed to his intercession alone.”

Father Aurelius Corbellini of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine testifies to similar favors. He says that he had induced a woman, who for years had led a dissolute life, and whom no admonitions could move, to wear the girdle of St. Thomas. In a few days she, who had been a public sinner, was changed to a model of continency. “That,” writes the narrator, “we have seen with our own eyes, heard with our own ears. It was an evident fact, to which we set our own seal in the name of the Lord.”

Occurrences similar to the above prompted a Belgian Dominicans, father Francis Deurwerders, to realize his idea of uniting all that wore these girdles of St. Thomas into a Confraternity under the title “Militia Angelica” or “Angelic Warfare.” With the concurrence of the very Rev. Father-General of the Order, Vincent Candidus, he drew up the statutes and submitted them to the Faculty of Theology in Louvain for examination, in the year 1640. The faculty interested themselves in the case, appointed their Dean protector of the Angelic Warfare, and decreed that the day of the translation of St. Thomas’ relics, January 28th, should be yearly celebrated as the principal feast of the Confraternity. In 1659, the Angelic Warfare was already introduced into the Churches of the Dominican Order at Vienna, soon after at Palermo, Reggio, Naples, Venice, Ghent, Valencia, Saragossa, Modena, Florence, Toulouse, Barcelona, etc. Kings and queens soon girded themselves with the new safeguard of chastity; and especially did numbers of students of the universities wear the girdle of St. Thomas. In 1677, the chapter-general of the Order resolved to petition the Holy See for an extension to the whole Order of the indulgences which had already been granted to the Angelic Warfare of some places. Pope Benedict XIII., himself a Dominican, granted the petition under date of May 26, 1727.

The greatest grace attached to the Confraternity is, indeed, the protection of the Angelic Doctor over purity of soul and body. By the permission of the General of the Order, John of Marinis, the members of the Angelic Warfare have, since February 28, 1651, shared in all the holy Masses, prayers, vigils, fastings, penances, merits and good works of the whole Dominican Order in its three branches, as well in life as after. This spiritual community of goods is sanctioned by the Holy See.