In the post-Vatican II “merger” syndrome so many of the more important Saints have been forgotten or tied into one package with others.
This is the month that sees the awful “occultilization” of the Vigil of All Saints: Halloween.
We would be better off if we had more protection rather than, for the sake of convenience, merging away those who can assist!
For October 24 was a day originally dedicated to the great Archangel, St. Raphael.
Hebrew for “God has healed!”
As the celebration of his feast would grant more graces as we approach Halloween, it would have been better to maintain Raphael’s personal feast day than to have merged it into one day honoring him with St. Michael and St. Gabriel.
One of the great pleasures in traveling through the Missions of California is the Franciscan devotion to these great Archangels.
A devotion shared by so many human Saints.
“And so the Angels are here; they are at your side; they are with you, present on your behalf. They are here to protect and to serve you. But even if it is God who has given them this charge, we must nonetheless be grateful to them for the great love with which they obey and come to help us in our great need.”
Words from St. Bernard that we, as believers, fail to live anymore.
For we do not show our gratitude to these important protectors.
Instead, we remove their personal feast days and fail to say a Mass in their honor.
St. Bernard is pointing out a long-forgotten Truth regarding the behavior of Angels.
They, too, have free will.
And while God gives people the charge of accomplishing many a task, failure for us, as human beings, is always a possibility. But with Angels in their “great love” for God, “they obey” and can turn our failures into the accomplishment of following the Will of our Lord.
We must remember that not all angels feel this way toward God or us.
These fallen angels, as any believer knows, work against the Will of God and seek our failure. They relish the activities of the occult.
It is these fallen angels that we cannot perceive that Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and our Guardian Angels are well aware of.
As one of the seven Archangels “who stand before the Lord” (Tobias 12:15), Raphael fulfills Christ Words: “See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their Angels always see the Face of My Father who is in Heaven” Matthew 18:10.
Indeed, in apocryphal writings, it is St. Raphael who “healed” the world when the fallen angels had defiled it (Enoch 10:7; and please remember St. Jude quotes Enoch in his Epistle, verse 14). It is St. Raphael whom the Jewish people believe was the “Angel of the Lord” who “descended at certain times” into the Bethsaida pool to heal the sick John 1:2-4.
And how have we honored St. Raphael?
The patron Saint of the blind and travelers, one of seven “who stand before the Lord,” could, if we but ask, be with us and keep us from being blind in our travels.
Why should we not call upon one who by the “Will of God,” “the Lord hath sent” “to heal thee” and “deliver … from the devil”?! Tobias 12:14.
Let others do and follow as they wish.
But there is no one who can tell anyone for any reason that it is improper or wrong to invoke the power of St. Raphael, the “Angel of the Lord” who “took the devil and bound him in the desert of upper Egypt” Tobias 8:3.
For it is a power given to those who believe.
A power the Saints knew well to invoke.
A power the Franciscans invoked as they journeyed through a wilderness.
“God has healed,” and He will again if we but ask.
As we battle the crescendo of occult forces pressing toward their “holi-day” at the end of the month, we would do well to honor Raphael and remember the prayer from the Mass that celebrates his personal feast day:
“O God, who didst give Blessed Raphael the Archangel to Thy servant Tobias, as a companion on his journey, grant to us, Thy servants, that we may always be protected by his care and strengthened by his help. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and Reigneth with Thee in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen!”
© 2003 Agnus Dei Presents!
