Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerick: The Feast of the Guardian Angel

Da Paolo Tessione - July 8, 2019

In the year 1820, on the feast of the Guardian Angel, Anna Katharina Emmerich received the grace of the visions of the good and bad Angels and their activity. I saw an earthly church full of people I knew. Many other churches stood out, on this one, as on the floors of a tower, and each had a different Choir of Angels. At the top of all floors was the Holy Virgin Mary, surrounded by the sublime Order, was before the throne of the Holy Trinity. At the top stretched a sky full of Angels and there was an indescribably wonderful order and life while below, in the Church, everything was beyond measure sleepy and neglected. This could be noticed particularly because it was the feast of the Angel, and every word that the priest pronounced during the Holy Mass, in a diffused way, the Angels presented it to God, so all that laziness was regenerated for the glory of God. I saw still in this Church how the Guardian Angels exercise their office: they cast out bad spirits from men, arousing in them better thoughts; in this way men can conceive serene images. Guardian angels aspire to serve and execute God's command; the prayer of their protégés makes them even more fervent of love for the Almighty ».

After a time the visionary expressed herself thus: Evil spirits manifest themselves in a completely different way than the Angels: they radiate a cloudy light, like a reflection, they are lazy, tired, dreamy, melancholic, angry, wild, rigid and passive, or slightly mobile and passionate. I have noticed that these spirits release the same colors that envelop men during painful sensations, coming from situations of extreme suffering and travails of the soul. They are the same colors that surround the martyrs during the transfiguration of the glory of martyrdom. Evil spirits have sharp, violent and penetrating faces, they insinuate themselves into the human soul as insects do when they are attracted to certain smells, on plants or bodies. These spirits therefore penetrate the souls, awakening all kinds of passion and material thoughts in beings. Their purpose is to separate man from divine influence by throwing him into spiritual darkness. Man is thus prepared to welcome the devil who gives the definitive seal of separation from God. I also saw how mortifications and fasts could greatly weaken the influence of these spirits, and how this influence could be decisively rejected in a particular way with the acceptance of the sacred sacraments. I still saw these spirits sowing greed and craving in the Church. Everything that disgusts and alienates man has a relationship with them; for example, disgusting insects have a profound and mysterious connection with the latter. I then had an image from Switzerland and how in that place the devil moves many governments against the Church. I also saw Angels who promote earthly growth and spread something on fruits and trees, others protect and defend countries and cities, but also abandon them. I cannot say how many innumerable spirits I saw, so many that I could well say that if they were in possession of bodies, the air would be obscured. Where then these spirits have great influence on men, I also saw fog and darkness. Often, as I can see, a man receives another Guardian Angel when he needs different protection. I myself have had a different guide on several occasions.

While Anna Katharina was telling this, she suddenly fell into ecstasy and moaning said: These attacking and cruel spirits come from so far and fall right there! " Then she recovered and came to herself, she continued to reveal: «I was carried infinitely high and I saw many violent, rebellious and obstinate spirits descending into the areas where restlessness and war were preparing. Such spirits approach the rulers and make sure that souls cannot approach them to advise them in the right way. I have seen the Blessed Virgin Mary beg a whole army of Angels to go to earth to restore order and stop the ruthless spirits; the Angels immediately hovered going down to these areas. An Angel with his flaming sword stood in front of each of these unyielding and hard spirits. Then the pious nun suddenly fell into ecstasy and stopped talking for a short time. Then he went on, still in ecstasy, and exclaimed: «What do I see! A great flaming angel hovers down on the city of Palermo where there is an uprising going on and says words of punishment, I see many people fall dead in the city! According to the inner growth, men receive the suitable guardian angels. As also kings and princes of a high rank receive Guardian angels of a higher order. The four winged angels, Elohim, who dispense divine grace, are Rafael, Etophiel, Salathiel, Emmanuel. The order of evil spirits and of the devil is much greater than that of the earth: in fact, as soon as an Angel gives up, a devil is immediately ready in his place with his action ... They act on everything that lives on earth and on men, even from the moment of birth, with different intensities and sensations The seer then spoke of other things as an innocent child who describes something of his garden. In the night, like a small gnome in the snow, I knelt in the fields rejoicing in the beautiful stars and prayed to God in this way: “You are my only and just Father and you have these beautiful things in the house, please show them to me! And he took me by the hand guiding me everywhere. "

On September 2, 1822 the Seer thus said:
I reached the top, in a garden suspended in the air, where I saw hovering between the north and the east, like the sun on the horizon, the figure of a man with a long, pale face. Her head seemed covered with a pointed cap. He was wrapped in bands and had a sign on his chest. I don't remember what was written, however. He carried his sword wrapped in colored bands and hovered slowly and intermittently on the ground, like the small flights of a pigeon. Then he freed himself from the bandages. He moved his sword here and there and threw the bandages over the sleepy cities which were wrapped like a noose. Along with the bandages, pustules and smallpox also fell on Italy, Spain and Russia. He also wrapped Berlin in a red loop; the noose extended here. Then I saw his naked sword, bloody bandages hung on the hilt and blood dripped from our region ».

September 11: An Angel appeared, between the east and the south, with a sword in whose hilt was like a cross full of blood. He poured it out here and there. He came to us and I saw him shed blood on Munster, on the cathedral square. "