St. Raphael

Saint Raphael the Archangel is one of the three archangels named in Sacred Scripture, honored alongside Michael and Gabriel. His name in Hebrew means God heals, and healing is the thread that runs through everything Scripture relates of him. As an angel, Raphael is a pure spirit created by God; he has no earthly biography, birth, or death, and the Church venerates him not as a canonized human saint but as one of the great messengers of God attested in the Bible. Raphael appears in the Book of Tobit, one of the most beloved narratives of the Old Testament. Disguised as a young kinsman named Azariah, he accompanies Tobias, son of the blind and afflicted Tobit, on a long journey to Media, guiding and guarding him along the way. Through Raphael's counsel Tobias is delivered from danger, marries Sarah after the demon tormenting her is driven off, and returns home to cure his father's blindness. Only at the end does the angel reveal himself as Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand in the presence of the Lord, before returning to the One who sent him. Christian tradition has also sometimes identified Raphael with the unnamed angel who stirred the healing waters of the pool of Bethesda in John's Gospel, though the Scripture itself does not name him. Because of his role in the Book of Tobit, Raphael is invoked as a patron of travelers and pilgrims, of the blind and the sick, of physicians and healers, and of happy meetings, including the search for a good spouse. For centuries the Latin Church kept his feast on October 24; the calendar reform of 1969 joined his celebration to that of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels, on September 29, the feast popularly known as Michaelmas. Devotion to Saint Raphael flourishes wherever the faithful seek healing of body and soul or protection on a journey. Churches, hospitals, and healing ministries around the world bear his name, and his intercession is a reminder, in the words of the Tobit story, that God's providence walks beside his people on the road.