Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

The Way of Jesus can be understood as a longing for God to be our strength, to be on fire for God’s justice, to experience God’s healing in our lives… all so that we can become more like God.

For many Christians a way of praying on these four goals involves meditations on the four Archangels. Gabriel, the angel who brought tidings to Mary that she would bear Jesus, is the Strength of God. Uriel, who guards the gate to Eden, is the Fire of God. Raphael, who accompanied Tobias on his journey, is the Healing of God. Michael, who fights all forms of evil, oppression, and injustice in the Book of Revelation, is Like Unto God. 

Today is the feast of Raphael the Archangel, the Healing of God. We encounter this angel in the book of Tobit as young Tobias travels to a distant land in hopes of finding a way to heal his father. While in the Gospels, and elsewhere in scripture, healing occurs almost instantaneously, in the Book of Tobit the path to wholeness involves a journey.

This journey is one where God walks with us or, as the book describes, God is present through the Archangel Raphael. This experience, one of healing as an often long and arduous process, is much more like what many of us experience than an instantaneous miraculous moment. For this reason, the story of Tobias and Raphael journeying towards healing has always been more meaningful to me than many of the other miraculous healings in scripture.

As we look to healing in our own lives and as we look to healing in the world around us as wars escalate and suffering increases… we are going to want everything to be solved with some sudden miracle of the moment. While we should not give up hope for such it is my mind that what we can do, as we wait, is take up the journey of healing with God. Continue as we can knowing that the Healing of God is With Us.

For some of us knowing that the name Raphael means God Heals can help sustain us on our journey as we name how angels and archangels join us not only as we sing during the Eucharist but also in our daily lives.

Pax,

—Ben