St. Raphael, Archangel

Tobit is a man who has always obeyed the laws of God, yet in his old age he has gone blind and is mocked by his townsmen. Sarah is a young woman plagued by a demon; she has been married seven times, but each time the demon has killed her husband on their wedding night. Both Tobit and Sarah pray to God for deliverance, by death if necessary.

In answer to their prayers, the Lord sends his archangel Raphael, who presents himself to Tobit as a kinsman named Azarias. Tobit sends his son, Tobias, with Raphael to a town in Media on business. During their trip, they meet Raguel, Sarah's father, who turns out to be a distant relation and invites them to stay with him. As soon as Tobias meets Sarah, he demands her hand in marriage. Initially reluctant, Raguel is persuaded by Raphael to allow it, and on their wedding night Tobias follows Raphael's advice and drives off the demon.

When Tobias and his new bride return to his father, Raphael tells him how to cure Tobit's blindness. Once Tobit's sight is restored, Raphael reveals himself: "When you prayed with tears...I offered your prayers to the Lord.... For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven who stand before the Lord." Tobit offers a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God, and the book concludes with the happy news that he lived to see his great-grandchildren, while his son Tobit lived to see his own great-great-great-grandchildren.

Tobit's beautiful prayer of rejoicing is used in the Divine Office, and the prayer Tobias and Sarah offered on their wedding night is used at many wedding Masses, my own included:

Tobias said, "Lord God of our father, may the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains, and the rivers, and all your creatures that are in them, bless you. You made Adam of the slime of the earth, and gave him Eve for a helper.  And now, Lord, you know, that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in which may your name be blessed for ever and ever."

Sarah also said, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, and let us grow old both together in health." [Tobit 7-10]

Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches.  In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered; waiting for the moving of the water.  And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water, was made whole, of whatsoever infirmity he lay under. [John 5:2-4]

There is a Litany of St. Raphael, found here; for a wallet-sized copy, go here.