Azariah: Maria’s Guardian Angel tells her his name.

  

I [Maria Valtorta] took the Holy Relic and began to say the usual prayer against Satan, who I feel is very intent on prowling around my house, me, and her [Maria’s housekeeper Marta]. Then I said the Act of Contrition, made a Spiritual Communion, the prayer: "Here I am, beloved and good Jesus… I am considering your five Wounds, etc., etc." and the prayer of the Cross, plus the Act of Offering, as I do every evening. I conclude with the "Glory Be" to the Holy Archangels and Angels, and finally to my Guardian.

 

As I say these last words to my Guardian Angel, I pause to ask, "But what's your name? You must have a name! I call you 'internal advisor.' But I'd like to call you by a name." He appears to me, next to the bed, to the right, toward the back, and says promptly, all smiles: "Azariah."

 

"Azariah? Really?" He smiles even more and says, "Are you not sure? Let's say together the 'Veni Sancte Spiritus' and seven 'Glorias,' as I have taught you for years in order to find answers and guidance from the Holy Spirit in every need, and then open the Bible at random. The first name you see is mine." 

 

I say the prayers with him and then open the Bible. It opens to 2 Chronicles 15:1. "Azariah, son of Obed, etc., etc.". The angel, still smiling, says: "And you can find the meaning of the name in the Book of Tobit, in the notes at the bottom of the page." I run to the Book of Tobit. I find at the bottom of the 5th chapter: "Azariah means 'help of the Lord,' therefore Azariah son of Ananias means: 'Help of the Lord, son of the goodness of the Lord.'" The angel says: "So it is," and smiles, looking at me sweetly. 

 

I observe him: tall, handsome, with dark brown hair, a round face, perfect in line and color, dark brown eyes, large, sweet, beautiful. I observe him in his loose robe: a straight tunic, very chaste, very beautiful, without a belt or cloak, with wide sleeves and a square neckline. The robe is white and silver. The bottom is a silver color, slightly burnished; The relief of this dress, which looks like precious brocade, is a luminous white, whiter than any snow or petal ever formed. And the relief is a succession of lily stems with open calyxes […] so that the angel seems wrapped in an enveloping bundle of blooming lilies. At the neck, sleeves, and hem, silver stripes. 

 

I say: "The same dress as on January 4, 1932, and the same appearance!" [When she saw her angel who had helped her at home after an illness, as she recounts in her Autobiography] "Yes. It is I. And if on other occasions I appeared to you with the three holy colors [red, blue, and green], it is to remind you that the Guardian watches over above all the life of the three theological virtues in the spirit of his ward."

I contemplate him, contemplate, contemplate, saying and savoring his name throughout the night of bitter suffering and without a shadow of sleep. From now on, "the internal advisor" will therefore be referred to by the name of Azariah, because, as he told me in greeting me before vanishing from my spiritual gaze, "every guardian angel is an Azariah: a helper of the Lord who in special cases makes himself more manifest by his order and for his glory." 

  

While I work with my needle, I mentally contemplate the moral figure of Jesus Christ. I think that if I could have a picture of Him painted according to my instructions and therefore as close as possible to His Holy Human Face, I would like to have a phrase written underneath that would be "all" that Jesus of Nazareth was. I think of "Come to Me," "I am the Way, Truth, and Life," "It is I, do not fear." But I feel that this is not yet what my soul desires to represent "the Christ." 

 

St. Azariah speaks to me: "Jesus is the Compendium of the love of the Three. Jesus is the Compendium of what the Holy Trinity and Unity of God are. He is the Perfection of the Three summarized in One. It is the infinite, multifaceted Perfection epitomized in Jesus. An abyss of Perfection before which the celestial armies and the blessed multitudes of Paradise prostrate themselves in adoration. An abyss of Love that could be, and can be, understood and accepted only by those who possess love.

“Observe, my soul, that both in the time of Christ and in this era there were always two points on which the arrogant intellect of man, who cannot believe unless he is humble and loving, was most obstinate: that Christ was God and Man and performed solely spiritual actions, for which he was hated even by his closest friends and therefore betrayed, and that he created the Sacrament of Love. Then, now, always, the "loveless" heretically said and will say that God cannot be in Jesus and that Jesus cannot be in the Most Holy, adorable Eucharist. Therefore, my soul, if you had to have a word written under the effigy of the Man-God, you should have it written: "I am the Compendium of Love." And St. Azariah is silent, adoring.

St. Azariah tells me: "Angels are superior to men. I say 'men' to refer to the beings so called, composed of matter and spirit. Then we are superior, all spirit. But remember that when Grace lives in man and the Blood of the Mystical Body whose head is Christ circulates, while the seven Sacraments strengthen him from birth to death, for every state and every phase of life, then in you, 'living temples of the Lord,' we see the Lord and adore Him in you, and then you are superior to us, you are 'other Christs,' and you have what is called the 'Bread of Angels,' but it is Bread only for men. Mystical, insatiable hunger for the Eucharist that is within you and that makes us cling to you, when you nourish yourselves with It, to smell the divine fragrance of this perfect Food!”

Based on Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1945-1950, entries for January 15, 1946 and January 20, 1946, pp. 170-176.

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