St Raphael

[posted by Eileen]

Justin told me that when he was attending the Parish Retreat earlier today, he heard a sermon given by Fr Augustine about St Raphael in the book of Tobit. (Briefly, St Raphael healed Tobit of blindness, he protected and guided Tobit's son named Tobiah on his travels and he delivers Tobiah's wife named Sarah from an evil demon. Tobit, Tobiah and Sarah were beset by trials and difficulties to purify them, but they remained steadfast in their faith during the period of testing, and eventually enjoyed God’s blessings and mercy. All prayed for deliverance and God sent St. Raphael.)

So Justin suggested that we named our child after St Raphael and I was very surprised when I heard this. This was because  1) We always planned to have our boys to have names that start with letter 'J' and girls with letter 'E' ever since we got married.   2) I was praying a few days ago, and during my reflection, I thought about the Theology of the Body course that Justin & I attended some months ago, and Fr David Garcia also spoke about Marriage and also reference to the book of Tobit, so I was also thinking that Raphael will be a beautiful name for our child :)

What a coincidence that both of us were thinking of the same name (it must be God's message to us).
And when we looked up the meaning of the name Raphael, it means 'God Heals'. :-)
So yes, we shall name our child after St Raphael.