Saint Alphonsus relates: Father Segneri relates that a sinner addicted to the grossest impurities went one day to confession to Father Nicholas Zucchi, of the Society of Jesus. The Father prescribed as a remedy for his wicked habits that he should recommend himself, morning and evening, to the purity of Mary, by saying three “Hail Marys.” After the lapse of several years the sinner returned o Father Zucchi, and by his confession showed that all his vices were perfectly corrected. The Father asked him how such a change had been wrought. He answered that through the little devotion of saying the three “Hail Marys” he had obtained the grace to change his life.
Father Zucchi, with the permission of the penitent, mentioned the fact from the pulpit. There was a soldier present who was actually in the habit of sins of impurity; he began to say every day the three “Hail Marys” and in a short time, with the aid of the divine Mother obtained for him, he soon renounced the evil habit. Through a false zeal, he went one day to the accomplice of his sins in order to convert her; but when he was on the point of entering her house he was suddenly driven back, and found himself transported to a considerable distance. He then understood that he had been prevented from speaking to the woman by a special grace obtained for him by Mary, for which he thanked her. Had he been placed again in the occasion of sin he would have probable lapsed. Glories of Mary Page 379 has more details.
Saint Alphonsus also says: Devotion to the holy Virgin, who is called “the Mother of fair love, and the guardian of virginity,” is a most useful devotion for the preservation of chastity. And to recite, at rising in the morning and going to bed at night, three “Hail Marys,” in honor of the purity of Mary, is a devotion that has singular efficacy in obtaining the gift of continence.
