Lorica (Prayer)

In the Irish, or Hiberno-Scottish, monastic tradition, a lorica is a prayer recited for protection, in which the person praying invokes the full power of God as a safeguard against evil in its many forms. The Latin word lorica originally meant armour, in the sense of chainmail or a cuirass, an image likely drawn from Ephesians 6:14, where Paul tells his readers to stand having put on the breastplate of righteousness, rendered in the Vulgate as lorica.