Three Hail Marys Hail Mary, he advised that the following prayer be said: "By thy pure and Immaculate Conception, O Mary, make my body pure and my soul holy." According to the St. Martha Catholic Church of the Pallottine Fathers, after Night Prayers: "Many saints have had the practice of adding three Hail Marys here in honor of Mary's purity for the grace of a chaste and holy life." Thus, it has been recommended as a daily practice for people who have received the Sacrament of Confirmation that they pray the Three Hail Marys for "purity of mind, heart and body" after examination
Veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her. The earliest known Marian prayer is the Sub tuum praesidium, or "Beneath Thy Protection", a text for which was rediscovered in 1917 on a papyrus in Egypt dated to c. 250. The papyrus contains the prayer in Greek and is the earliest known reference to the title Theotokos (confirmed by the Council of Ephesus in 431): Beneath your compassion, We take refuge, O Mother of God: do not despise our petitions in time of trouble: