SAINT GABRIEL

And now I beseech you not to pray to me,
for I am only a messenger of the Lord.

Pray only to God.

Love God with all your heart
and keep His commandments.

The Archangel Gabriel is called the
Angel of the Annunciation
because it was he who informed Mary
that she had found favor with the Lord
and that she would conceive in her womb the
Son of God.

The lilies Gabriel carries symbolize the purity of Mary.

The Archangel Gabriel also announced to Zacharias
that he would have a son born to him who would be
John the Baptist.

It was the Archangel Gabriel who inspired
Joan of Arc to go to the aid of the
King of France.

There is a tradition that Gabriel is the Angel of Birth.

It is said that he carefully spends the nine months of the pregnancy watching over each unborn child
and instructing that child on the necessary knowledge of Heaven that is an inherent part of all people.

Just before birth, though, Gabriel touches each baby
on the upper lip to make the child unable to remember
all of the information about Heaven until the child
returns to the spiritual state at death.

The sign of Gabriel’s Touch
is the cleft just below the nose.

The Archangel Gabriel

Gabriel is the Governor of Eden,
the ruler of the Cherubim.

He is one of the two angels mentioned by name
in the Old Testament, along with Michael.

Gabriel is the Angel of the Resurrection
and the Angel of Mercy.

He rules the first heaven,
which is the heaven closest to humankind.

Gabriel appeared to Daniel to explain his vision of the fight between the ram and the he-goat (the oracle of the Persians being overthrown by the Greeks).

He appeared again to Daniel
to tell him of the coming of a messiah.

In Jewish legend, it was Gabriel
who dealt death and destruction to the sinful cities of
Sodom and Gommorah.

According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 95b)
it was Gabriel who destroyed the armies of Sennacherib
"with a sharpened scythe which had been ready since Creation."

In the Talmud it is also written that
Gabriel prevented Queen Vashti from appearing naked before King Ahasuerus and his guests in order to bring about the election of Esther in her place.

Cabalists identify Gabriel as "the man clothed in linen".
In Daniel 10-11, this man clothed in linen is helped by Michael.

Gabriel is the preceptor angel of Joseph.

In more recent times, Gabriel is named as the angel
who visited Father George Rapp, leader of the 2nd Advent community in New Harmony, Indiana, and left a footprint on a limestone slab preserved in the yard of the Maclure-Owen residence in that city.

The poet Longfellow, in his ‘The Golden Legend’, makes Gabriel the angel of the moon who brings man the gift of hope.