St. Gabriel - "Fortitudo Dei"

Fr. Scott Haynes

St Gabriel is the Fortitudo Dei (Strength of God) and is one of the three archangels mentioned in the Bible. Only four appearances of Gabriel are recorded:

1) In Daniel 8, he explains the vision of the horned ram as portending the destruction of the Persian Empire by the Macedonian Alexander the Great, after whose death the kingdom will be divided up among his generals, from one of whom will spring Antiochus Epiphanes.

2) In chapter 9, after Daniel had prayed for Israel, we read that "Gabriel . . . . flying swiftly touched me" and he communicated to him the mysterious prophecy of the "seventy weeks" of years which should elapse before the coming of Christ.

3) In chapter 10, it is not clear whether the angel is Gabriel or not, but at any rate we may apply to him the marvelous description in verses 5 and 6.

4) In the New Testament he foretells to Zachary the birth of the Precursor, and to Mary that of the Savior.

Thus, he is throughout the angel of the Incarnation and of Consolation. While Gabriel is ever the angel of mercy, Michael is rather the angel of judgment. At the same time, even in the Bible, Gabriel is, in accordance with his name, the angel of the "Strength of God," and it is worth while noting the frequency with which such words as "great", "might", "power", and "strength" occur in the passages referred to above.

The Jews indeed seem to have dwelt particularly upon this feature in Gabriel's character, and he is regarded by them as the angel of judgment, while Michael is called the angel of mercy. Jewish scholars attribute to Gabriel the destruction of Sodom and of the host of Senna-cherib, though they also regard him as the angel who buried Moses, and as the man deputed to mark the figure Tau on the foreheads of the he elect (Ezekiel 4).

In later Jewish literature the names of angels were considered to have a peculiar efficacy, and the British Museum possesses some bowls inscribed with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac incantations in which the names of Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel occur. These bowls were found at Hillah, the site of Babylon, and constitute an interesting relic of the Jewish captivity. In apocryphal Christian literature the same names occur, cf. Enoch, ix, and the Apocalypse of the Blessed Virgin.

As remarked above, Gabriel is mentioned only twice in the New Testament, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that it is he who appeared to St. Joseph in a dream to inform him the child in Mary’s womb the Son of God and savior of the world.

According to some of the Fathers of the Church, it was Saint Gabriel, Angel of the Incarnation, who invited the shepherds of Bethlehem to come to the Crib to adore the newborn God and also that it was he who "strengthened" Our Lord in the garden (cf. the Hymn for Lauds on 24 March).

Gabriel is generally termed only an archangel, but the expression used by St. Raphael, "I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord" (Tobit 12:15) and St. Gabriel's own words, "I am Gabriel, who stand before God" (Luke 1:19), have led some to think that these angels must belong to the highest rank; but this is generally explained as referring to their rank as the highest of God's messengers, and not as placing them among the Seraphim and Cherubim (cf. St. Thomas, I.112.3; III.30.2 ad 4).

Upon Her consent, “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” It was he, we can readily believe, who also fortified Saint Joseph for his mission as virginal father of the Savior Jesus Christ. St Gabriel rightly bears the beautiful name, the strength of God, manifesting in every apparition the power and glory of the Eternal.

He was with Jesus in His Agony, no less ready to be the strength of God in the Garden than at Nazareth and Bethlehem. As we honor St. Gabriel on his feast day, the day before Mary's Annunciation, he honor him as the Angel of the Incarnation, the Angel of consolation, and the Angel of mercy.

Hail Gabriel, hail; a thousand hails

For thine whose music still prevails

To charm the list'ning ear;

Angelic word, sent forth to tell

How He the Eternal Word should dwell

Amid His creatures here.

Heaven's voice of sweetness, uttered low,

Thy words like strains of music grow

Upon the stilly night;

Clear echoes from the mind of God,

That steal through Mary's blest abode

In pulses of delight.

O voice, dear voice, the ages hear

That hail of thine still ling'ring near,

An unexhausted song;

And still thou com'st with balmy wing,

And still thou sweetly seem'st to sing,

Thine Ave to prolong.

Take up in Heaven for us thy part,

And singing to the Sacred Heart

Thy strains of rapture raise;

And tune with endless Ave still

The voices of the Blest, and fill

The ear of God with praise.