What do we really know about the Angel Gabriel?
The Annunciation was not the first time the St Gabriel appeared in Holy Scripture—it was the fourth. What do these other appearances tell us about this angel?
The Annunciation was not the first time the St Gabriel appeared in Holy Scripture—it was the fourth. What do these other appearances tell us about this angel?
Editor’s Notes
In this piece, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How the Angel Gabriel’s missions reveal God’s decisive intervention in human history.
That he may have been chosen for his tasks due to his devotion to the mystery of the Incarnation—even at the time of Satan’s all.
How he embodies the grandeur and humility of divine providence.
He shows us that St Gabriel, as God’s messenger, executed his missions with perfect obedience, prophesying and then heralding the dawn of redemption with a reverence and power befitting the moment when eternity entered time.
The Angel Gabriel’s prophecy to the prophet Daniel
Before proceeding to Fr Coleridge’s text, let us note that St Gabriel’s first appearance is not in the New Testament, but in the Old.
He appears to the Prophet Daniel on two occasions, delivering a prophecy about the advent and redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ—and about the tyrannical king Antiochus IV, who was an image of the Antichrist par excellence.
This topic is dealt with here:
Thus we see that Gabriel’s missions pertain both to Christ himself directly, and the Antichrist via one of his most famous forerunners.
Eve of the Annunciation
The Preparation of the Incarnation
Chapter XI
Burns and Oates, London, 1885
Headings and some line breaks added.
Part I: Were St Joseph and Our Lady married before the Annunciation?
Part II: What do we know about St Gabriel?
Mission of an Angel
In sending an Angel to announce to our Blessed Lady that she had been chosen to be the human mother of the Incarnate Son, God dealt with her only according to that general rule of respect, or as the Wise Man has worded it, reverence, to His free creatures on which He continually acts.
One of our spiritual writers has drawn out very beautifully1 the extremely tender and condescending manner in which He dealt with our first parents after their fall, giving them, as it appears, every opportunity of a humble and candid confession, and of pleading their own cause, as far as it admitted of defence, before He passed on them the sentence of His justice. If God could show so much condescension and gentleness with regard to those who had unworthily offended Him, it is not wonderful that, when the time came for Him to repair the evils of the fall in a most magnificent manner by the Incarnation, He should treat with the utmost consideration the chosen Mother who was to be the instrument of the execution of His great design.
Thus Mary was not to be made the Mother of God against her will or without her knowledge and free consent. There were many reasons for this, on which the holy writers dwell, and this of the manner in which God deals with His creatures is the first. He had endowed our Blessed Lady with all the immense gifts of which some little has already been said, and now the moment was come when she was to be asked, so to say, to be what He had designed her to be from all eternity.
The power of God
The power and majesty of God is shown in the embassy of one of the highest Angels, executing His will with the most perfect obedience and joy and rapidity. The great wisdom of God, moreover, is shown in the very manner in which Mary is approached, for it is the very same manner in which the Fall of Man had been brought about by the insidious conversation of Satan with our first mother Eve. We shall have to draw this out more fully when we come to speak of the details of the Annunciation, but we are now only concerned with the fact of the Annunciation in general.
In the first place, it is obvious that God gave to our Lady, by the method which He adopted of carrying out His design in her regard, wonderful opportunities of exercising virtue, of increasing her merit in His sight, and of receiving fresh illumination from Himself. The whole history, short as it is, is a display on her part of the most marvellous virtues—humility, prudence, discretion, love of purity, faith of the most unparalleled beauty, obedience, and the rest. Of these we shall also speak when we come to the dialogue between her and the Angel.
Opportunities to our Lady
This great display of virtue could not but be to her a great occasion of increase of merit, and the Fathers use the most wonderful language when they come to speak of the merit simply of the faith which she displayed on this moment of her trial. Perhaps she was already so high in the degree of her merit and illumination as to be unable to receive any fresh enlightenment from the Angel. But the words of St. Gabriel assured her that the Holy Ghost Himself would come upon her, and thus she received at the time of the Annunciation the great Source of all illumination Himself.
And again, in the third place, the carrying out of this mystery in the manner in which it was carried out is full of instruction for us. Even in our ways of dealing with men we may learn much from it, much as to our own duties and respect to our parents, much also as to the true position and prominence of this blessed Mother in the kingdom of her Son founded on His Incarnation in her blessed womb. It is hardly possible to conceive any one who has a true idea of the Incarnation itself, supposing it morally possible that God should have brought it about without this previous communication of His intention to His blessed Mother. But we may still learn much that may help our contemplations from the consideration of these reasons for the embassy of St. Gabriel which are found in various Christian writers.
Selection of St. Gabriel
The selection of the blessed Angel Gabriel for the mission which was to announce to our Blessed Lady her great dignity has given occasion to many interesting discussions among the Christian writers as to the particular rank occupied among the heavenly host by this chosen messenger.
Some of the Fathers speak of him as one of the very highest of the Seraphim, while others place him in a lower rank according to the name Angel which is given him in the Gospel. It cannot be considered that this last argument is conclusive, for the name Angel is generic, and need not be considered as always signifying the lower ranks of the hierarchy of heaven.
But we need not dwell on this question, as to which we have not, in our present very scanty knowledge of the blessed dwellers in Heaven, sufficient ground for a decision.
What is known of him
What we know about this glorious spirit seems to amount to this. In the first place, we of course know that he stood firm in his faithfulness to God at the time of the trial of the whole heavenly host, which issued in the defection of Satan and many of his associates and in their being cast out of heaven into hell. If the trial of the Angels was, as it is sometimes said to have been, the proposal to them of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God, against which those who rebelled rose up out of pride, we have thus some reason for thinking that the Angel who was afterwards selected as the envoy of God to Mary may have distinguished himself at that time by his peculiar love and devotion for the mystery of the Incarnation.
We also know that his name in the Sacred Scriptures signifies the strength and power of God, and thus it may be that he is specially used on those missions in which the great power of God is particularly shown. In the next place, we know that he was employed by God as the special revealer to the prophet Daniel of the time of the accomplishment of the Incarnation. This makes it natural to suppose that he is the Angel especially charged with the missions which concern the carrying out of this great work of God. This, again, is confirmed by the selection made of him to begin the announcement of its accomplishment, by the apparition in the Temple to Zachary of which we have already spoken.
What may be supposed
More than this we do not know. But although he is not mentioned by name, it seems reasonable to think that in other matters concerning this same great mystery St. Gabriel may have been employed by God, such as the apparition to the shepherds at the time of our Lord's Nativity, and again, and much more, the visions by means of which St. Joseph was assured of the Divine Conception of our Lord in the womb of his own Spouse, and on the other occasions when he received guidance as to the movements of the Holy Family.
Some writers have affirmed that he was deputed as the Guardian of our Blessed Lady and that on this account he appeared to her at the Annunciation. Some also think that St. Gabriel was the Angel who appeared to our Lord in the agony in the Garden, to give Him strength and comfort. All these conjectures are uncertain, but they are sufficient to give us a kind of picture of the work which may have been specially committed to this glorious prince, and to encourage us to devotion to him, especially as one who may help us mightily in all that relates to the application to our own souls of the benefits of the Incarnation.
He must also be considered, at least, as one of the Angels who are peculiarly devoted to our Blessed Lady, and whose honour by us delights her heart.
Silence of God’s works
All the great works of God are done in silence, but surely never did God do a greater work than the work of the Incarnation, and never did He work more silently and secretly than in this. The missions of the Angels are swifter than the rays of light, swifter than the currents of electricity. The moment that the command was given to Gabriel, the same moment he was at Nazareth, and the Angelic choirs may have known that one of their chief princes was sent on an errand of marvellous mercy.
To the rest of the universe all was as it had been the moment before. Hell had no conception of the work about to be accomplished. The “strong armed man” of whom our Lord speaks, was keeping his court in that kind of peace which is possible to realms such as his. At least he had no thought, with all his cunning, all his experience, all his knowledge of the prophecies and study of the ways of Providence, of the overthrow which was to be.
In the blessed abode of the saints who were awaiting their deliverance, there may have been some vague expectation, an insensible strengthening of hope and an instinctive feeling of consolation and joy. Purgatory may have been stirred by a more intense longing, and the holy souls throughout the world, looking for redemption, may have felt as it were a wave of delight passing over their minds.
The world at peace
The great Roman world, we are told, was at peace. But the peace of the Roman world, what did it mean? It did not mean that sin was subdued, that passion was not raging, that lust, and anger, and hatred, and greed were not tearing the hearts of men and hounding them on against their fellows. It did not mean that the abominable idolatries and unutterable turpitudes of the heathen world were less rife than ever. It did not mean that the devils were not being worshipped on a thousand altars by the degradation of all that was noble in human nature. It did not mean that innocence was safe from pollution or weakness protected from violence and tyranny.
Where over the whole wide world could the eye of God rest, as it rested when the original creation was accomplished, and see that all was good? But the wickedness of man could not defeat the faithfulness of God. In the cottage at Nazareth the chosen maid was waiting, unconscious of the divine purpose, but prepared by the most wonderful graces to make the blessed answer on which the salvation of the world hung. The period of promises and predictions—and types of the divine patience struggling with human depravity—was at an end. The fulness of time had come.
Eve of the Annunciation
Part I: Were St Joseph and Our Lady married before the Annunciation?
Part II: What do we know about St Gabriel?
Read Next:
Here’s why you should subscribe to The Father Coleridge Reader and share with others:
Fr Coleridge provides solid explanations of the entirety of the Gospel
His work is full of doctrine and piety, and is highly credible
He gives a clear trajectory of the life of Christ, its drama and all its stages—increasing our appreciation and admiration for the God-Man.
If more Catholics knew about works like Coleridge’s, then other works based on sentimentality and dubious private revelations would be much less attractive.
But sourcing and curating the texts, cleaning up scans, and editing them for online reading is a labour of love, and takes a lot of time.
Will you lend us a hand and hit subscribe?
Follow our projects on Twitter, YouTube and Telegram:
Lancicius, in the Treatise against Rash Judgments.