Yet, only three years before that meeting, the lifelong Catholic had never heard of Mother Teresa.
Raphael was teaching in Hawaii when the humanitarian won the Nobel Peace Prize.
"I was teaching about India ... so I had to find out as much as I could about her as fast as I could," Raphael said. "Everybody was so interested in her. They kept asking questions and wanted to write about her when they had to do essays."
Before long, Raphael became entranced by the "Saint of the Gutters."
A friend who was taking her vows from Mother Teresa invited Raphael and her 12-year-old son to attend. When Raphael arrived at St. Rita's Church in New York City for the ceremony, she had hopes of one day writing a book about Mother Teresa.
"I'd never seen her before," Raphael said of the woman she fondly refers to as Mother. "When I saw her walking up, I couldn't believe how tiny she was ... and yet so huge, like her spirit was taking over the whole place ... Nobody moved. It was something I'd never seen any other human being do - capture people (in that way). It was like seeing Jesus."
Raphael, an Ohio native, stayed after Mass with her friend and the nuns.
Raphael mentioned to one of the sisters that she was writing a book about Mother Teresa, and the nun whisked Raphael to meet her.
"She says, 'Mother you've gotta meet my friend, she's writing a book for young adults about the work.' Mother stops what she's doing and she shakes hands with me and starts talking to me for a few minutes," Raphael said.
Throughout the day, other nuns would learn about Raphael's plans and return her to Mother Teresa's side, where the conversation continued off and on for hours.
"When you spoke to Mother, she made you feel like, at that moment, she was speaking to you alone - and there could be a bishop waiting for her," Raphael said. "She didn't stop until she was through talking to you."
Raphael said Mother Teresa seemed enthusiastic about the project but met Raphael's request for information about her childhood with some resistance.
"I told her I want to write for children, so I want to know what she was like as a child, and she says, 'Don't talk about me, talk about the work,'" Raphael said.
When writing her first book about the revered Catholic, "Mother Teresa: Called To Love" (Sky Blue, $15), Raphael respectfully eschewed Mother Teresa's advice, delving into her childhood in Skopje, Macedonia. Raphael traveled the world researching her books, including time she spent working at Mother Teresa's ministries in Calcutta, India, and Tijuana, Mexico.
"As I'd find out about people who were Mother's friends, I'd write letters to the people," Raphael said.
Raphael is not the only person to have ignored Mother Teresa's advice.
A book published this year on the 10th anniversary of Mother Teresa's death, "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light" (Doubleday, $23), includes decades of letters in which she revealed that she doubted her faith.
Although Mother Teresa ordered the letters destroyed, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who edited the book, felt the letters would help Catholics struggling with the same doubts.
Raphael was stunned by the revelation of Mother Teresa's "dark night of the soul," something she learned about years ago during a San Diego retreat hosted by Kolodiejchuk, director of the Mother Teresa Center in Tijuana.
"All of us who worked with her, who spent time with her, were shocked to death, because that wasn't Mother," Raphael said. "Mother loved to tell jokes, she loved to hear jokes. She was a joyful, joyful person.
"When we prayed, she seemed so enthusiastic about the rosary," Raphael added. "She said she saw Jesus in the Eucharist. Now she says sometimes she felt completely cold when she was doing Communion. Nobody would ever know that."
As the priest tasked with pleading for Mother Teresa's beatification and canonization, Kolodiejchuk collected letters contained in the book for the Vatican's consideration.
"He asked if any of us had letters," Raphael said. "They wanted to see everything and give it to the pope so they could decide who Mother really was."
Raphael traveled to Rome in 2003 for Mother Teresa's beatification ceremony at the Vatican. Despite the recent revelation, which Raphael covers in a chapter of her new book, she believes Mother Teresa's sainthood is assured.
Raphael has had her share of struggles with bipolar disorder. She wrote a book about her ordeal, "Along Came A Spider: A Personal Look At Madness" (Writer's Showcase, $19).
Raphael says it is an uncanny sensation that while she was in the midst of a nervous breakdown while residing in Hawaii, Mother Teresa also was entangled in her personal morass.
"I was empty and lost, like I was in hell," Raphael said. "I felt Mother was feeling the same thing and then I said, 'Oh, that's ridiculous. That's my imagination.'"
Raphael said she feels people could benefit from the revelation of Mother Teresa's struggles.
"There's so many people today who don't have religion, who don't have faith," Raphael said. "It shows you that you can love and you can do loving action without feeling love yourself."
