Raphael is an angel who brings compassion and healing.

The Story of Raphael’s Intervention

The book of Tobit talks about angel Raphael. Tobit was a commoner. He was not a king or even a prophet. He lived outside Judea in a strange country that belonged to the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans hated the Jews and many Jews were massacred in the streets. The Jews were not even allowed to have a proper burial. Tobit took the risk of burying the dead bodies of the Jews killed by the Chaldeans. One day after burying a body, he returned home and slept outside the house. Next day when he woke up he lost his eyesight. He felt terribly depressed.

In another distant land a young Jewish girl called Sarah was planning to commit suicide. She married many times and her husbands were killed by an evil spirit on the very first night on every occasion. Sarah prayed to God and Angel Raphael carried her prayer to the throne of God. The good deeds and prayers of Tobit were also taken to the throne of God. God told Raphael to intervene.

Raphael came down in disguise. He walked with Tobit’s son, Tobias for miles and miles for many days before reaching Sarah’s house. He arranged for Tobias and Sarah’s marriage and on the very first night Raphael bound the demon responsible for the death of Sarah’s former husbands.

The Angel of Commoners

We do not know why one of the greatest angels in the heavenly court came down to earth to fix a seemingly trivial problem. Raphael looks different from other angels in the bible. He looks very compassionate. He is moved by the tears of an old man and a young maiden. He takes the pain of walking many miles with a mortal man to arrange a marriage for him. Later in the bible, we do not even hear about Tobias or their descendants. Some Christian bibles do not include the book of Tobit as it sounds like a trivial legend (except the Roman Catholic and the Greek orthodox bible).

Raphael is an angel who brings compassion and healing. Raphael takes our tears and prayers to God. The story of Tobit shows that heaven is actively engaged in solving the temporal problems of men as long as they are living here according to the will of God. It speaks about the angelic ministries. It reminds me of father Abraham sending his most trusted aide to a distant land to find a spouse for Isaac.

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Our Father in Heaven is concerned about us and our spouses. He has put none other than His trusted angels in charge of our affairs. The angels do intercede for us and they take our virtues, prayers, fasting and good deeds to the throne of our Father.

The evil spirits easily identify our body language and promptness.

Can spirits, demons read our minds? Most say no. We wonder. Those who have encountered demons during deliverance and other situations have seen where those kinds of entities certainly seem to react to silent commands and prayers, or simple thought patterns in a way that goes beyond reading body or facial language.

It is said that in the afterlife, in the world of spirits, communication is not verbal but mind to mind (or spirit to spirit) and if it’s the case among spirits in the hereafter, why not also in the here? In the realm of psychic phenomena (and occultism) is the phenomenon of telepathy (mind-to-mind thought transfer). Moreover, there are peculiar times when evil or negative thoughts enter our own thoughts in a way that again seems to transcend physical cues.

Whatever the case, a related and equally intriguing question is what angels know about us, and here, a Polish magazine, “The Angels: Messengers from a Loving God” offers this in a recent article:-

“Angelic intellect and cognition are more perfect and more thorough than ours; nevertheless, their abilities are limited. The demons’ ability to know us is also limited by God. But, according to exorcists, if one conducts a pact with the devil, the latter will know all aspects of the spiritual life of a person and influence their way of thinking. We should ask the Lord for protection of our thoughts and intentions from demons so that they cannot sabotage our purposes. Degradation of demonic minds concerns the supernatural area of knowledge. Their speculative knowledge has been decreased and their affective knowledge connected with Divine Love has disappeared completely.”

Further states this magazine: “Both good and fallen angels do not know the future that is dependent on our free will. Besides, we too, do not know what we are going to do next because sometimes we change our minds. Only God knows us on the whole. Angels may predict our decisions on the basis of our susceptibilities, psychic condition, and on how we behaved in similar situations in the past.

Demons know about past and current events in our lives; they also know our psychical and physical nature which allows them to tempt us and do us a disservice. However, they do not know people’s spiritual experiences and God’s Grace revealed in souls. After their rebellion, a demon’s intellect only serves the evil one.”

That seems certain. As for the rest: a person’s speculation is just that, at least in this arcane realm: guesswork. In the afterlife the spirit world no thoughts are secret. What about the fact that angels respond to our prayers, including silent ones? If they can’t hear our thoughts, how can that be? What about demonic thoughts inserted at just the right moment? If thoughts can be sinful, is it not the evil one who is near every sin? And what about fear: is that not often unspoken and yet something that evil spirits respond to?

There is no real foundation for either argument in the Bible (with the possible exception of Daniel 2:27-28). “Since God has infinite power, authority and capability, he could have created Satan, Michael, cherubs, and other heavenly hosts to have any abilities he wanted them to have,” argues one Christian.

“It doesn’t seem we are told much about this. Seems like he could have created Satan to have the ability to read our minds and hearts if he had so desired. Since the ability to prevent Satan from knowing our thoughts is such a strategic advantage for a Christian, seems like it would have been specifically identified for us, it would rank way up there in the “armor of God” or would have been taught by Jesus.”

Of course, demons are in an excellent position to deduce what’s on our minds since they can see us from the outside, he adds. “They know exactly what we’re reading, watching on TV, they overhear our conversations, see our physical responses, hear even our ‘private’ words, and are no doubt skilled at reading our expressions. They see us when other people can’t, any time they wish.

Now as far as putting thoughts in our mind or exercising powers of persuasion, I don’t know how that works—perhaps there is a form of telepathy whereby they send a message, plant an idea, without being able to read exactly what we’re thinking. I agree there’s demonic activity involved in distracting us during prayer, but I think they don’t have to be able to read our minds to do this.”

What we do know is that fear empowers evil spirits, including unspoken fear. Replace it with faith in order to fight the enemy.

- – - written by Dr. Philip Kunnath

Perhaps no aspect of Catholic piety is as comforting to parents as the belief that an angel protects their little ones from dangers real and imagined. Yet guardian angels are not just for children.

Their role is to represent individuals before God, to watch over them always, to aid their prayer and to present their souls to God at death. The concept of an angel assigned to guide and nurture each human being is a development of Catholic doctrine and piety based on Scripture but not directly drawn from it.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:10 best support the belief: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”

Devotion to the angels began to develop with the birth of the monastic tradition. St. Benedict gave it impetus and Bernard of Clairvaux, the great 12th century reformer, was such an eloquent spokesman for the guardian angels that angelic devotion assumed its current form in his day. A feast in honour of the guardian angels was first observed in the 16th century. In 1615, Pope Paul V added this feast of Guardian Angels to the Roman calendar.

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