January 15, 1946prev home
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5:30 a.m.
If I don’t write about my nocturnal joy, I will feel bad.
Well then. We went to bed at a quarter past midnight, and Marta fell asleep at once. And when she sleeps... she really sleeps! I picked up the Holy Relic and began to recite the usual prayer against Satan, whom I feel is very intent on circling around my house, around you and me. I then made an Act of Contrition and spiritual Communion and said the prayer beginning “Here I am, beloved and good Jesus... meditating on your five Wounds...,” as well as the one on the Cross and the Act of Offering, as I do every night. I finished with the “Glorias” to the Holy Archangels and Angels, concluding with my Guardian Angel. As I was saying these last words to him, I interrupted myself to ask, “But what’s your name? You must also have a name! I call you ‘inner advisor.’ But I would like to address you with a name.”
He appeared to me alongside my bed, on the right, towards the foot, and immediately said with a big smile, “Azariah.”
“Azariah? Really?”
He smiled even more and asked, “Aren’t you sure? Let us together say the Veni Sancte Spiritus and seven Glorias, as I have taught you for years in order to obtain a reply and guidance from the Holy Spirit in every need, and then open the Bible at random. The first name you will see is mine.”
I said the prayer with him and then opened the Bible. It opened before me at page 596, 2 Chronicles, chapter fifteen: “Azariah, the son of Obed....” The angel, still smiling, said, “And you will find the meaning of the name in the Book of Tobit, in the footnotes.”
I rushed to the Book of Tobit and in chapter fifteen, at the foot of the page, found: “ ‘Azariah’ means ‘help from the Lord.’ ‘Azariah, son of Ananias’ thus means ‘help of the Lord, son of the Lord’s goodness.’ ”
The angel said, “That’s the way it is” and smiled, looking at me gently.
I observed him: tall, handsome, with dark brown hair, a rounded face perfect in its lines and color, and large, gentle, very beautiful dark brown eyes. I observed his loose robe: a straight tunic, very chaste and attractive, lacking a belt or mantle, with long sleeves and a square-shaped opening at the neck. The robe was white and silver. The background was a very slightly burnished silver. This robe’s embroidery, which seemed to be a precious brocade, was a luminous white, whiter than any snow or petal ever formed. And the embroidery was a whole stream of lily stems with an open calyx. They followed in a one direction, like this: … [sketch] in such a way that the angel seemed to be wrapped in an enveloping sheaf of lilies in bloom. At the neck, on the sleeves, and at the bottom were silver stripes.
I said, “The same clothing as on January 4, 1932,150 and the same appearance!”
“Yes, it is I. And if on other occasions I appeared to you with the three holy colors it was to remind you that the Guardian watches, above all, over the life of the three theological virtues in the spirit of the one he protects.”
I contemplated and contemplated him, pronouncing and savoring his name throughout the night of bitter sufferings and without any shadow of sleep....
From now on, then, the inner advisor will be indicated by the name of Azariah, for, as he told me on saying good-bye before disappearing before my spiritual gaze, “every guardian angel is an Azariah: a help from the Lord who in special cases becomes more manifest by his order and for his glory.”
150 See the closing section of Part Four in The Autobiography.