According to Catholic tradition, the angel Rafael is an angel of healing. He is called an archangel, after the angel Michael. The angel Raphael does not appear in the Bible.
The angel Rafael appears only in the apocryphal book of Tobias . According to this book, Rafael helped a young man named Tobias on his journey. Tobias met the angel Rafael on the road, disguised as a man. Rafael helped him to find his way and to catch a fish.
See more about the apocryphal books here .
Following Rafael’s advice, Tobias kept the liver, heart and gall of the fish. The angel Rafael guided Tobias to the home of a woman named Sara, to marry her. All the other men who had married Sara had been killed by a demon on their wedding night. But the angel Rafael instructed Tobias to use the fish’s heart and liver to chase the demon away .
Tobias married Sara and survived the wedding night. Then he returned with his wife to his father’s house, who was blind. Instructed by the angel Rafael, Tobias used the gall of the fish to cure his father’s blindness. Then the angel Rafael disappeared and Tobias did not see him again.
What does the Bible say about the angel Raphael?
The Bible says nothing about an angel named Raphael. Tobias’ book is apocryphal (not accepted as divinely inspired) and does not appear in the Protestant Bible. The Bible only speaks the names of two angels of God: Gabriel and Michael.
Michael is called one of the princes of angels, or archangels ( Daniel 10:13 ). This means that there may be other archangels but we do not know how many there are or their names. We cannot say if there really is an angel named Raphael because the Bible does not give us this information.
Read here: who is Archangel Michael?
Should we pray to the angel Rafael?
No, we must not pray to the angel Rafael, nor to any other angel. We should only pray to God. Angels help us but obey God’s orders only. All help comes from God ( Revelation 22: 8-9 ).
Find out more about angels in the Bible here.
It is God who heals and gives guidance. It is He who has the power to help us. Angels are just instruments to do His will, like all God’s servants. Therefore, we must focus our attention on God, not angels.
