His story
Everything told of him comes from the Book of Tobit.
Tobit was a good man in Nineveh who had gone blind, and Sarah a young woman in Ecbatana whose seven husbands had each died on their wedding night. Far apart, they prayed to God on the same day, and God sent the angel Raphael to answer both prayers. He travelled with Tobit’s son Tobias in the form of a man, drove off the demon that had killed Sarah’s husbands so that Tobias could marry her, and showed Tobias how to heal his father’s eyes. When Tobit could see again, Raphael told them that he was one of the seven angels who stand before God, and that God had sent him to heal them both (Tobit 12:14-15).
“St. Raphael the Archangel”, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911; The Book of Tobit, chapters 3 to 12
His feast days
29 September: His feast, with Sts Michael and Gabriel, in the Catholic Church.
8 November: The feast of the archangels in the Orthodox churches on the new calendar. Those on the old calendar keep it on 21 November.
The Roman calendar, 29 September: Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Archangels; Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers, 8 November, Orthodox Church in America
Why people ask St Raphael the Archangel
Healing
His name means “God has healed”. The Orthodox call him “the curer of human infirmities”, and on his old feast day in the West, 24 October, the Gospel read was the healing at the pool of Bethesda.
Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers, Orthodox Church in America; “St. Raphael the Archangel”, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911
Where it comes from
Who wrote it
No one knows who wrote it. In 1890 Pope Leo XIII granted an indulgence to all who say it, and its oldest printing found is in the Raccolta of 1898, the Church’s book of indulgenced prayers.
Raccolta di orazioni e pie opere (Rome, 1898), p. 385, no. 215, with the rescript of 21 June 1890
In Italian
Glorioso Arcangelo S. Raffaele, gran principe della corte celeste,illustre pei doni di sapienza e di grazia,guida di coloro che viaggiano per terra e per mare,consolazione dei disgraziati e rifugio dei peccatori,
io vi supplico di assistermi in tutti i miei bisogni e in tutte le pene di questa vita,come già soccorreste il giovane Tobia nei suoi viaggi.
E poichè siete la medicina di Dio,vi prego umilmente a sanar la mia anima dalle numerose sue infermità,e il mio corpo dai mali che lo affliggono,se questa grazia sarà pel mio meglio.
Vi domando in special modo un’angelica purità,onde meriti d’essere il tempio vivo dello Spirito Santo.Così sia.
From Raccolta di orazioni e pie opere (Rome, 1898), p. 385, no. 215.
