The Messenger Angel

Anonymous, the Archangel Gabriel, depicted on the predella of the high altar at the subsidiary church of Pesenbach, Upper Austria, 1495

In the traditional Roman calendar, the feast days of saints are sometimes clustered together to form archipelagos of holiness that allow the faithful to meditate longer on a sacred mystery. These archipelagos do not always consist of consecutive days. On January 15, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Paul the First Hermit, and two days later she celebrates the Saint who discovered that Saint Paul was the first hermit, St. Antony the Abbot. September 29 is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, and three days later is the feast of the Guardian Angels (October 2). On February 11, the universal Church celebrates the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes, and one week later, some locales are permitted to celebrate the feast of the Saint to whom Our Lady of Lourdes appeared, St. Bernadette Soubirous (even though she died on April 16). St Agnes’ feast day is January 21, and on January 28 the Church commemorates the apparition of St. Agnes to her parents when they were praying at her tomb eight days later. September 8 celebrates the Mother of God’s birthday, September 12 Her most holy name, and September 15 her Seven Sorrows.

Often, however, the clusters of which I speak are formed by two consecutive feasts. On January 25, the Church celebrates the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, and the day before she remembers Paul’s faithful companion Saint Timothy. The feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is August 15 and that of her father Saint Joachim August 16. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross is September 14 and the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin September 15. The Augustinian friars celebrated the Conversion of Saint Augustine on May 5, and as a result, the feast of St. Monica, who was so instrumental in her son’s conversion, was placed on the Roman calendar on May 4. [1]

We should not be surprised, then, to see in the 1962 Roman calendar the feast of St. Gabriel the Archangel on March 24, and the Annunciation on March 25. What is surprising is how long it took to make this obvious pairing. While the Annunciation is one of the oldest feasts in Christendom, the feast of Mary’s messenger did not find its rightful place until 1921. But before we turn to that feast, let us learn more about the angel that it honors.

The Angel

Along with Saints Michael and Raphael, Gabriel is one of only three angels mentioned by name in the canonical Scriptures. [3] Unlike Michael, the Bible does not refer to Gabriel as an archangel, but he is nonetheless recognized as such by the Church. As Pope St. Gregory the Great explains, angels as an order are the spirits that deliver messages of lesser importance, and archangels are, among other things, the order of spirits that deliver messages of greater importance. [3] Since the message that Gabriel was delivering was of the utmost importance, it stands to reason that he was an archangel.

Gabriel appears four times in the Bible, twice in the Old Testament and twice in the New. In Daniel 8, 15-26 and 9, 21-27, the archangel explains to the prophet Daniel the meaning of his perplexing visions. Gabriel may also be the subject of Daniel 10, 5-6, which describes a dazzling man clad in linen and gold. Jewish tradition holds that Gabriel is also the angel who destroyed Sodom and the host of Sennacherib, the angel who buried the body of Moses (as opposed to Michael? See Jude 9), and the angel who marked the figure Tau on the foreheads of the Elect (Ezekiel 9:4). [4]

Gabriel also appears in apocryphal literature. In the Book of Enoch, he is a ferocious guardian of Israel, ordered by God to “proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication” (1 Enoch 10, 9).

In the New Testament, Gabriel appears once to Zachary (Luke 1, 5-25) and once to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1, 26-38). However, it is not unreasonable to believe, as some in the early Church did, that Gabriel is also the angel who appeared to Saint Joseph (Matt. 1, 20 & 24; 2, 13 & 19) and the shepherds (Luke 2, 8-12), and that he consoled or “strengthened” Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22, 43). Accordingly, on his feast day we pray that he console and strengthen us as well. [5]

And what will Gabriel’s role be at the end of time? Matthew 24:31 mentions angels with a trumpet foretelling the end of the world, but Gabriel is not named. The earliest reference to “Gabriel’s horn” is in a hymn by the Armenian Saint Nerses the Gracious (1102-1173); from there it passed into Armenian Christian art. Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) is the first time that Gabriel blowing his trumpet appears in English; the trope later became ubiquitous in Black spirituals and songs such as “The Eyes of Texas” (1903). Although there is no authoritative Catholic source for this belief, it is not unreasonable to imagine that the angel who announced Christ’s First Coming will announce His Second.

The name Gabriel is Hebrew for “God is my strength” or the “strength of God.” If Gabriel did indeed destroy Sodom as well as a host of bastards and reprobates, the appropriateness of the name is not difficult to grasp. But how does divine strength relate to his all-important role as messenger to the Blessed Virgin Mary? According to Gregory the Great, “God’s strength” (“Gabriel”) announced the coming of the Lord “of heavenly powers, mighty in battle”—in other words, an angel whose name refers to divine power is the herald for the Person who wields divine power. Similarly, St. Bernard of Clairvaux notes that since Jesus Christ is “the power of God” (1 Cor. 1, 34), it is fitting that His Incarnation be announced by an angel of that name. “On one hand, Christ is called the strength or power of God,” Bernard preaches, “on the other, the angel: the angel only nominally, but Christ substantively as well.” [7]

Theological Tutor

Saint Gabriel deserves special attention in our thoughts and imagination because he is a stern but merciful teacher of theology done rightly. When he visits the Levite priest Zachary, the archangel announces the good news that he is to be the father of the Forerunner of the Messiah despite his age and that of his wife. Zachary, however, perhaps puffed up on his pedigreed learning, balks. “Whereby shall I know this?” he asks. “For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (Luke 1, 18). Zachary’s question springs from doubt rather than faith; the message of God does not fit into his paradigm of what he thinks he knows, and so he is apt to reject it. Consequently, Gabriel rebukes him:

And the angel answering, said to him: ‘I am Gabriel, who stand before God: and am sent to speak to thee, and to bring thee these good tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall come to pass, because thou hast not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time’ (Luke 1, 19-20).

James Tissot, "The Vision of Zacharias," 1886-1894

Gabriel’s next apparition is to a fifteen-year-old girl in Nazareth named Mary. When he announces a far more momentous event, that she will be the Mother of God, the simple maiden too asks a question: “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” (Luke 1:34). Mary knows how the birds and bees work, and she also knows (according to St. Thomas Aquinas)[8] that she has made a vow of perpetual virginity. She does not doubt the angel, but she bravely asks a question of a different order: in light of what I hold, how will things (which I know by faith will come to pass) come to pass?

Rather than punish her, the angel rewards her with an answer. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,” he explains, “and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

Leonardo da Vinci, "The Annunciation," ca. 1472

God does not mind when we ask pressing questions: as St. John Henry Newman famously stated, a thousand questions do not add up to a single doubt. The key is whether our questions are an outgrowth of faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum) or an attempt to undermine the faith in light of our own fancy druthers. St. Gabriel’s schooling of Zachary and Mary offers an invaluable lesson in how to do, and how not to do, Catholic theology. All Catholic theologians, I submit, can be divided into two categories: Zecharian theologians whose uncertainties dead end into heresy and apostasy, and Marian theologians who push the envelope but never doubt the first principles of the Faith. Thanks be to God, Zachary learned his lesson the hard way, and we pray that his modern counterparts will do the same.

Patronages

As the most important messenger in the history of the universe, the Archangel Gabriel is the patron saint of a wide array of trades and hobbies that involve communication. The heavenly herald is a patron of broadcasters, communication workers, diplomats, information workers, messengers, military signals, postal workers, radio, telecommunications, telegraphs, telephones, and television. And if the angel is a patron of postal workers, why not stamp collectors? Hence Gabriel is the protector and promoter of philatelists.

What is less clear is why St. Gabriel is invoked against rheumatism. Perhaps the angel’s alacrity in carrying messages back and forth from Heaven gave hope to people suffering from bad joints, or perhaps artistic portrayals of Gabriel genuflecting limberly before the Virgin were a similar source of inspiration.

The Feast

Angels were added to the Church calendar gradually. In A.D. 530, Pope Boniface II consecrated a basilica in Michael’s honor on the Salarian Way about seven miles from Rome, with the ceremonies beginning on the evening of September 29 and ending the following day. Subsequent celebrations of this dedication were held first on September 30 and later on September 29. In the traditional calendar, “Michaelmas,” as it is also called, maintains the official title “The Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel,” even though the basilica it commemorates disappeared over a thousand years ago.

Michaelmas also commemorates all the heavenly hosts (including Gabriel and Raphael by name in the Divine Office), but the primary focus is on St. Michael. Over time, the Church began to see the wisdom of singling out particular angels for liturgical veneration. In 1670, Pope Clement X included the Feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2 of the universal calendar, the first available day after Michaelmas. And in 1921, Pope Benedict XV added separate feasts celebrating the divine missions of the Archangels Gabriel and Raphael, the latter on October 24 and the former on March 24.

Pope Benedict XV

The Holy Father’s rationale is worthy of reflection. According to the official annals of the Holy See, Benedict XV acted “in compliance with the hopes and wishes of many bishops” and “was deeply moved by their specific, valid arguments.” In consultation with the Sacred Congregation of Rites, he authorized a mandatory Office and Mass for the Feasts of the Holy Family, Gabriel, and Raphael. “It escapes no one’s notice,” he writes,

how right and salutary (aequum et salutare) it is for the domestic family and for society itself to foster and propagate the association of the Holy Family that has been established by the Apostolic See, strengthened by laws, and honored with indulgences and special privileges for sodalities and parishes—and, with this same end in mind, to worship and celebrate the Holy Family of Nazareth in the universal Church through a particular liturgical rite and with a continual and fruitful meditation on their kindnesses and imitation of their virtues.

The Pope continues:

It is no less fitting as well, for the increase of piety and of actual association with the Holy Family, to commemorate with religious celebration the divine mission of both Archangels, namely, Saint Gabriel for announcing the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, and Saint Raphael, whose kindnesses bestowed on the family of Tobias are described in the Sacred Scriptures.[9]

The feast instituted by Pope Benedict XV is a great gift to the Church: the Divine Office draws the faithfuls’ attention to his appearance in the Book of Daniel as well as his disciplining of Zachary in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, which is nowhere highlighted properly elsewhere in the liturgical year, old or new. Drawing from a sermon by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (which is in the Matins readings), the Collect of the Mass focuses on a wondrous fact: that of all the billions of angels created by God, Gabriel was chosen from all eternity to announce the mystery of the Divine Incarnation:

O God, who among all the other angels didst choose the Archangel Gabriel to announce the mystery of Thine Incarnation, grant kindly: that we who celebrate his feast on earth may feel his very patronage in Heaven. Thou who livest.

The Postcommunion Prayer for the Mass is likewise instructive:

Having partaken of the mysteries of Thy Body and Blood, O Lord our God, we beseech Thy clemency: that as we know that Gabriel announced Thine Incarnation, so too with his help, may we obtain the benefits of the same Incarnation. Thou who livest.

The Postcommunion artfully connect the archangel’s message to the Incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Incarnation that happens at every valid celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We address Jesus Christ in this prayer (as we did at the Collect) as the Person who became Incarnate for our sake, at the announcement of his servant Gabriel. But the fact of the Incarnation is one thing, the benefits thereof another. The demons figured out that God became man, but it did not profit them. We pray that the (non-fallen) angel who helped bring out the Incarnation will help us benefit from its effects.

The Novus Ordo

In the 1969 Roman Missal, September 29 is the combined “Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels.” No official reason was given for what Dr. Peter Kwasniewski calls an “almost rabid smushing together” of feasts [10] (as opposed to the archipelagic clustering mentioned earlier), but it may have had something to do with the antiquarian tendencies of Archbishop Bugnini and his colleagues, who disdained relatively recent additions to the calendar. Whatever the reason, it was, in our view, an unhelpful reduction, and for four reasons.

First, it is more appropriate to honor St. Gabriel on March 24 than in late September. So what if for most of the history of the Roman Rite Gabriel was indirectly honored only on Michaelmas? The Ethiopian Church has honored Gabriel with his own feast for centuries, the Coptic Church honors him with three feasts, and the Byzantine Rite does with two. (In the latter, one of the feasts falls on March 26, the day after the Annunciation.) For Rome to give Gabriel his own feast on the eve of the Annunciation is a no-brainer, and for Rome to annul this long overdue development (which is in keeping with the other apostolic churches) forty-seven years later is lamentable and, we might add, hardly ecumenical.

Second, it is beneficial to meditate on the nature and ministries of the angels, especially in a materialist age such as ours that forgets or denies a vast unseen spiritual world and the countless invisible acts of angelic mediation that are taking place right now in the realms of both nature and supernature. Peppering the calendar with commemorations of angels heightens “angel awareness” throughout the year, and that is good.

Third—and continuing with the topic of angelic ministries—having different feasts for different angels is fitting because different angels have different missions, as the Scriptures make clear. The Church reserves a day to celebrate all the Saints in Heaven (November 1), but she still observes individual saints’ days in order to honor their peculiar talents and graces. Similarly, the Church can institute an All Angels’ Day if she wishes (which I am not recommending since Michaelmas arguably fulfills this function in both calendars), but she should still honor some angels on other days.

Fourth, the family is arguably under assault like never before, and it needs all the resources it can get. If Pope Benedict XV was right in his belief that devotion to Gabriel increases devotion to the Holy Family (and we believe he was), then the calendar is now less effective in “increasing piety” and tightening our bonds to the “association” of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And that is not good for the family or for society. 

Let us pray that Saint Gabriel the Archangel is once again given the honor he is due by the people of God—before he blows his horn.

This article appears in the 2022 Winter/Spring issue of The Latin Mass magazine. Many thanks to the editors of TLM for its republication here.

Notes

[1] In the Novus Ordo calendar, a similar batching occurs by moving Monica’s feast day to August 27, the day before the Feast of St. Augustine. It is, however, less appropriate, for Monica is closely tied to Augustine’s conversion rather than his death, which occurred four decades after hers.

[2] In the book of Tobias / Tobit, Raphael states that he is one of the seven Angels “who stand before the Lord” (12, 15). Filling in the blanks, Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Christians identify the other four Archangels as Uriel, Jegudiel or Jehudiel, Selaphiel or Salathiel, and Barachiel. The names of these angels, however, are taken from Jewish and Christian apocrypha and not from the Bible.

[3] Homily 32, 8-9.

[4] See Hugh Pope, “St. Gabriel the Archangel,” The Catholic Encyclopedia,. vol. 6. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909), 23 Jan. 2022.

[5] See the Lauds Hymn Placare, Christe, Servulis.

[6] Homily 32, 8-9.

[7] Homily 1 on Missus est, 2, trans. mine.

[8] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.28.4.

[9] AAS 13 (1921), 543, trans. mine.

[10] Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness (Angelico Press, 2017), 222.

The Feast of All Saints 2024: The Angels

From the Roman Breviary of 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the feast of All Saints.

It is God who placed the supernal kingdoms of the Heavens for the angelic spirits, to the praise and glory and honor of His name and of His majesty, in wondrous order forever. We grow afraid to say too much about them, because it belongs to God alone to know how their nature, which is invisible to us, without contamination or decrease stands firm in its purity. Yet from the witness of the Sacred Scriptures we know that there are nine orders of Angels, to fulfill the judgments and service of God; whose principalities and powers are subtly and marvelously distinguished by the will of God omnipotent. Some of them are sent to us in this world, and come to foretell future events. Others are set for this purpose, that through them signs and wonders may frequently be done. … Other armies of the Angels are so joined to God that between Him and them there are no others; the more plainly they behold the glory of His divinity, the more do they burn with love. To all these ranks of Angels, dearest brethren, so beautiful and beloved of God, we believe this solemnity is also consecrated. But behold, as we pry into the secrets of the citizens of Heaven, we have digressed beyond the measure of our frailty. Let us keep silent in the meanwhile concerning the secrets of Heaven; but before the eyes of our Creator, let us wipe away the stain of sins with our tears, that we may be able to come one day to those of whom we speak.

The Nine Choirs of Angels. In the central circle are God the Father, Christ, and the Virgin Mary in prayer; in the band around them the Sanctus is written three time; in the broader band, six each of the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones. In the middle, three each of the Dominations, Principalities, and Powers, with the beginning of the Gloria above them, repeated three times. At the bottom, three each of the Virtues, Archangels, and Angels, with the words “Salus Deo nostro qui sedet super tronum et Agno” (salvation to our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb - Apoc. 7, 10) above their heads, three times. (From the Breviari d’Amour by Matfré Ermengau of Béziers; British Library Yates Thompson 31, folio 40v.)

The Feast of St Raphael the Archangel

St Michael is mentioned three times in the book of Daniel, once in the Apocalypse, and once in the Epistle of St Jude, but each time, more or less in passing; the Church’s devotion to him, which is universal and very ancient, derives in no small measure from his appearances in some very popular apocryphal works. St Gabriel is mentioned twice in Daniel, and the second time, gives a speech which prophesies the time of the Messiah’s coming; he also appears very prominently in the first chapter of St Luke, but only there. The only other angel who is given a name in the Bible, St Raphael, appears in only one place, the book of Tobias, but he plays a very much more prominent role within it than the other two do in their Biblical appearances.

The Three Archangels and Tobias, by Francesco Botticini, 1470

The largest part of the book’s narration, from the fifth chapter to the twelfth, tells how the Archangel, disguising himself as a man, accompanies the younger Tobias on a journey to recover a debt owed to his father; delivers him from various dangers, including a demon; and arranges for him to marry a kinsman’s daughter, which makes the boy very rich. Upon returning home, the boy heals his father’s blindness, following the instructions of the angel, who then reveals himself to them, saying “I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord. … Peace be to you, fear not. For when I was with you, I was there by the will of God: bless ye him, and sing praises to him. I seemed indeed to eat and to drink with you: but I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be seen by men.”

The reference to St Michael in the Epistle of St Jude is actually in a quotation from a very well known apocryphal work, the Book of Enoch, in which St Raphael also figures very prominently. As in the book of Tobias, he “binds” a demon and casts it into the desert (10, 6), and he “presides over every suffering and every affliction of the sons of men” (40, 9); this latter also refers to the meaning of his name, “God heals.” His words in the book of Tobias, “I am … one of the seven, who stand before the Lord”, gave rise to a Byzantine custom of depicting seven Archangels standing together around the Lord enthroned. Along with the three Biblical Archangels, many icons of this motif give names to the remaining four, taken from various apocryphal sources; one is called Uriel, who is also mentioned several times in the Book of Enoch. The names of the remaining three vary; in the 19th century icon seen below, they are given as Jegudiel, Selaphiel and Barachiel.

Despite all this, liturgical devotion to St Raphael is a fairly recent phenomenon. The Byzantine Rite keeps a feast of all the Angels on November 8th; its formal title is “The Synaxis of the Great Commanders (ἀρχιστρατήγων) Michael and Gabriel, and the rest of the Bodiless Powers”, but its liturgical texts make no reference to St Raphael, and he has no feast of his own. (As in the Roman Rite, St Michael has a secondary feast, commemorating one of his apparitions, and St Gabriel has two feasts of his own.)

In the West, a votive Mass in his honor seems to have been fairly popular, and is found in many Missals of the later 15th and early 16th centuries, but I have never seen his feast on the calendar of any liturgical book from the same period. In the Missals of Sarum, Utrecht and elsewhere, this Mass is found together with those of several other healer Saints, Sebastian, Genevieve, Erasmus, Christopher, Anthony the Abbot, and Roch. The following rubric is regularly given before the Introit. “The following Mass of the Archangel Raphael can be celebrated for pilgrims and travelers; so that, just as he led and brought Tobias back safe and sound, he may also bring them back. It can also be celebrated for all those who are sick or possessed by a demon, since he is a healing angel; for he restored sight to (the elder) Tobias, and freed Sarah, the wife of his son, from a demon.”

By the middle of the 19th century, his Mass and Office were usually included in Missals and Breviaries in the supplement “for certain places.” His feast is assigned to October 24th, for no readily discernible reason. Pope Benedict XV, who reigned from 1914 to 1922, took a particular interest in devotion to the Angels. At the end of 1917, he raised the feast of St Michael to the highest grade, double of the first class, along with the March 19 feast of St Joseph. In 1921, he added the feasts of Ss Gabriel and Raphael to the general Calendar, the former on the day before the Annunciation.

The first part of the Litany of the Saints, from the Echternach Sacramentary, written at the very end of the 9th century; in the first column on the left, the three Biblical Archangels are named right after the Virgin Mary, with Raphael before Gabriel. They are followed by several Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testament, then Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins as usual. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 9433; folio 13r, cropped)

The Gospel of his feast day is the beginning of chapter 5 of St John. “At that time, there was a festival day of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered; * waiting for the moving of the water. And an angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water, was made whole, of whatsoever infirmity he lay under.”

In its article on St Raphael, the Catholic Encyclopedia states that “many commentators … identify Raphael with the ‘angel of the Lord’ mentioned in (this passage)”. A modern note to the same effect is the first search result that the Patrologia Latina gives for the word “Raphael”, and the Blessed Schuster states in The Sacramentary that “the angel who stirred the pool is often identified with St Raphael by the Fathers of the Church.” However, none of these three give any specific citations for this assertion, and the Patrologia gives no results if one searches for “Raphael” in conjunction with a citation of John 5, or any of the keywords of that passage, such as the name of the pool. There is no mention of him in the commentaries on this chapter by Ss John Chrysostom, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria or Bede, nor in St Thomas’ Catena Aurea, or the two most important medieval Biblical commentaries, the Glossa Ordinaria and Nicholas of Lyra’s Postilla; John 5 is not cited in the commentaries on the book of Tobias by Ss Ambrose and Bede. Furthermore, the Byzantine Rite has a special Sunday of the Easter season dedicated to the healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethsaida, with a proper liturgical office, which makes no reference to St Raphael.

The Healing of the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethsaida, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-82), 1667-70. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

I suspect that the real reasons for the choice of the Gospel lie elsewhere. One would be that John 5, 4 is the only place in any of the Gospels where an angel is mentioned in connection with a miracle of healing. [See note below] The other is that this same text is read in a very ancient votive Mass of the Angels, composed by Blessed Alcuin of York in the days of the Emperor Charlemagne. Prior to the Tridentine Reform, this votive Mass was not included in the Roman Missal, but was found in the majority of other medieval Uses, and the Gospel seems to have carried over from it into the votive Mass of St Raphael.

[In the fifth chapter of St John’s Gospel, the end of verse 3 and all of verse 4, the part noted with a red star above, are missing from many of the most important ancient manuscripts, and are therefore marked as an interpolation in modern critical editions of the New Testament. They have nevertheless been received by the tradition of the Church, and are used liturgically in both the East and West.]

The Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel, Living Icon of the Incarnation

The primary feast day of the archangel Gabriel in the Byzantine rite is March 26th, but the calendar also includes the Synaxis of Gabriel on July 13th. The latter feast is especially dedicated to all of Gabriel’s beneficent interventions in salvation history.

As Michael Foley explained in an article posted on NLM a couple years ago,

Along with Saints Michael and Raphael, Gabriel is one of only three angels mentioned by name in the canonical Scriptures. Unlike Michael, the Bible does not refer to Gabriel as an archangel, but he is nonetheless recognized as such by the Church. As Pope St. Gregory the Great explains, angels as an order are the spirits that deliver messages of lesser importance, and archangels are, among other things, the order of spirits that deliver messages of greater importance. Since the message that Gabriel was delivering was of the utmost importance, it stands to reason that he was an archangel.

The name “Gabriel” is thus of exceptional significance: this chosen messenger announced the Incarnation of the eternal God, and furthermore, out of the innumerable host of angelic beings, Holy Scripture assigns names only to three of them. The name “Gabriel” is typically explained as meaning “man of God” or “strength of God.” Even if we concede that ancient cultures naturally associated physical strength with masculinity, the two interpretations are rather different.

The Annunciation. France, late fifteenth century. Tempera and shell gold on parchment.

The first part of the name derives from the Hebrew noun גֶּבֶר (gever), which means “man” but more in the sense of Latin vir than of Latin homo. The uncertainty arises because gever may also refer, by the metonymic extension that is common in biblical Hebrew, to a man’s strength. In the Book of Job, for example, God twice exhorts Job to “gird up now thy loins like a man,” where “like a man” translates כְגֶבֶר, i.e., the preposition כְ (“like, as”) prefixed to gever. The evident meaning is that Job should gird himself with (manly) strength, or perhaps even with the strength and courage of a warrior, for gever (by another metonymic extension) can signify “soldier.” The word’s connection to strength is more direct in Isaiah 22, 17: “Behold, the Lord will carry thee away with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover thee”; in this rendering from the King James Bible, the adjective “mighty” corresponds to the noun gaver (gever with a vowel change). The verse is a difficult one and was thoroughly reworked in the 1885 Revised Version: “Behold, the Lord will hurl thee away violently as a strong man; yea, he will wrap thee up closely.”

This is all to say that “Gabriel” can indeed convey either “man of God” or “strength of God,” but “man of God” is more faithful to the core meaning of gever. It is also more faithful to Gabriel’s role in salvation history, and this is what I wish to emphasize: given the literary sophistication of the Bible—which of course reflects the supreme literary sophistication of its Author, whose words are also deeds, and whose stories are scenes in the factual drama of human history—we would expect to find poetic resonance between Gabriel and the incomparably momentous message that he brought to Mary of Nazareth. His name supplies this resonance, and his appearances in the Old Testament intensify it.

The Annunciation. Switzerland, early fourteenth century. Tempera, ink, and gold on parchment. 

As shown above, Hebrew gever is a terrestrial sort of word, denoting the physical, male being called man and expanding to man’s strength, man’s vocation as warrior, man’s role as husband (Proverbs 6, 34), and male offspring (Job 3, 3). To name an immaterial, celestial being “man of God” is highly paradoxical—and yet eminently fitting, for this is the celestial being whose privilege it was to announce the all-surpassing Paradox of the hypostatic union. Gabriel is thus a living icon of the Incarnation, and the Hebrew Scriptures surround him with incarnational language. When Gabriel is sent to explain the vision that Daniel received, Daniel saw someone standing before him “as the likeness of a man” and heard “a man’s voice” (Daniel 8, 15–16). Later, Daniel identifies the archangel as “the man Gabriel” (9, 21), not because he is a man but because he, like Christ, appears in the form of a man; here, “man” is אִישׁ (ʾish), which is closer than gever to Latin homo (or to English “human being”).

Gabriel interprets Daniel’s vision. Spain, thirteenth century. Courtesy of the Morgan Library & Museum.

Finally, Daniel speaks of “a certain man” who may again be Gabriel, and if not, he is some other glorious being who is certainly much more than a man:

Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with finest gold: his body also was like chrysolite, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like the color of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude. (Daniel 10, 5–6)

Troparion of the Archangel Gabriel

O people, with a candlelight assembly let us sing the praises of the leader of heaven’s hosts. He is the servant of light sent from the Light divine to enlighten all who sing with love: O Gabriel, leader of the angels, rejoice with all the powers of heaven.

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The Apparition of St Michael

In addition to the universal feasts of the Mother of God, from the Immaculate Conception to the Assumption, the Church also keeps local feasts connected with major centers of Marian devotion such as Loreto in Italy, Walsingham in England, Guadalupe in Mexico etc. A similar custom holds in regard to the Archangel Michael, and in one sense, may be called a universal custom of the Western Church. His principal feast on September 29th originated with the dedication of a church built in his honor a few miles outside Rome off the via Salaria; this feast’s title remained “The Dedication of St Michael” for centuries after the church itself fell into ruins and was abandoned. The Ambrosian liturgy received the feast from Rome, and kept it with the same title, using several of the Mass chants, as well as the Epistle and Gospel, from the common Mass for the dedication of a church.

St Michael, by Fra Filippo Lippi

The Roman Breviary states in the lessons for May 8th that Pope Boniface II (530-32) built a church in honor of St Michael “in the great circus”; this statement seems to confuse the Circus Maximus with the smaller Circus Flaminius, which no longer exists, but was opposite the Tiber Island, in the area of the modern Jewish quarter. Next to its former location stands a Roman portico, built by the Emperor Augustus in honor of his sister Octavia, and within the portico, a small church dedicated to St Michael. This was the traditional location of Rome’s fish-market, well into the 19th century, in fact, and the church is therefore called “Sant’ Angelo in Pescheria – The Holy Angel in the Fish-Market.”

However, the Roman Martyrology refers the September feast to neither of these churches, but rather to the shrine of St Michael on Mount Gargano in the Puglia region of Italy, generally honored as the first church dedicated to him in the West. Today’s feast is called the “Apparition of St Michael” from a story which takes places at the end of the 5th century, and is not reported consistently in ancient sources. The version given in the Breviary is that a bull belonging to a fellow named Garganus wandered into and got stuck in a cave on the side of the mountain. When someone launched an arrow at it, it flew back at him; the inhabitants of the area then asked their bishop what to do about this portent. The bishop declared that they should pray and fast for three days, after which, St Michael appeared to him and told him that the place was under his protection, and a church should be built there in his honor.

The apparition of St Michael on Mt Gargano, by Cesare Nebbia and students, from the Gallery of the Maps in the Vatican Museums, 1580-84.

The Martyrology describes this church as “vili quidem facta schemate, sed caelesti praestans virtute – made in a mean fashion, but outstanding in heavenly might.” In point of fact, much of the church is not “made” at all, at least not by human hands. Mt Gargano is a large massif, rather more like a mesa than a hill, very steep on the northern side where the sanctuary is, with the town of Monte Sant’Angelo located on top. One enters the shrine through a forecourt in the town, and after passing the doors, descends to the church by a considerable number of steps. The church itself is one half natural cave, and one half a set of rooms, including a choir and a relic chapel, built in front of the cave’s opening, and supported from beneath by enormous buttresses that reach quite far down the massif.

In northern Europe, Mont-Saint-Michel holds the same place that Monte Gargano holds in Italy, and the feast of St Michael’s apparition there is kept on October 16th. In the Sarum Breviary, the Matins lessons for this feast begin with an acknowledgement that the devotion to him on Gargano was older. “After the Frankish nation, marked by the grace of Christ, far and wide throughout the provinces on all sides had subdued the necks of the proud, the Archangel Michael, who is set in charge of Paradise, who had formerly shown that he wished to be venerated on Mount Gargano, by many signs showed that now he ought to be honored in the place which is called by the inhabitants ‘Tumba.’ ” (Mons Tumba is the Latin name for the Mont-Saint Michel.) The story continues that in the early 8th century, St Michael appeared three times to the local bishop, St Aubert, and ordered him to build not just a sanctuary, but a replica of the one on Gargano.

The Byzantine Rite keeps a feast on a similar line, related to a shrine in Phrygia, in west-central Asia Minor. At Chonai, near the city of Colossae, (the Christians of which received a letter from St Paul), St Michael appeared to the father of a mute girl, directing him to bring his daughter to a nearby spring, where she miraculously gained her speech. A church was then built over the spring, which attracted many Christians and led to many conversions. The local pagans thought to destroy the church by diverting two nearby rivers towards it, but St Michael came to defend his shrine personally; as he struck a rock nearby, a fissure opened in it which swallowed the rush of water. The feast of “the Miracle of St Michael the Archangel at Chonai” is kept on September 6th. There were several churches in Constantinople itself dedicated to St Michael; the dedication feast of one of these became the general commemoration “of All the Bodiless Powers”, celebrated on November 8th, just as the Roman feast on September 29th also became the feast of All Angels.

A 12th-century icon of the Miracle of St Michael defending the church of the springs at Chonai, probably made in Constantinople, now at the monastery of St Catherine on Mt Sinai.

The two hymns of St Michael were among the most drastically altered in the revision of Pope Urban VIII; here is a nice recording of the original text of the Vesper hymn, retained by the Benedictines and the religious orders with proper Uses, in alternating Gregorian chant and polyphony.

Tibi, Christe, splendor Patris, vita, virtus cordium, / in conspectu Angelorum votis, voce psallimus: / Alternantes concrepando melos damus vocibus. (To Thee, o Christ, splendor of the Father, life and strength of our hearts, in the sight of the angels, we sing with prayer and voice. Our choirs resounding give forth the song.)

Collaudamus venerantes omnes cæli milites, / Sed præcipue Primatem cælestis exercitus, / Michaelem, in virtute conterentem zabulum. (In veneration we praise all the soldiers of heaven, but especially the Leader of the heavenly army, Michael, as in might he destroys the devil.)

Quo custode procul pelle, Rex Christe piissime, / omne nefas inimici: Mundo corde et corpore, / Paradiso redde tuo nos sola clementia. (With him as our guardian, drive far away, Christ, most holy king, every wickedness of the enemy; with pure heart and body, bring us back to Paradise by Thy clemency alone.)

Gloriam Patri melódis personemus vocibus, / Gloriam Christo canamus, Gloriam Paraclito, / Qui trinus et unus Deus exstat ante sæcula. Amen. (Let us sound forth glory with melodious voices to the Father, let us sing glory to Christ, glory to the Paraclete, who is God one and three before the ages. Amen.)

The Feast of All Saints 2023: The Angelic Choirs

From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the seventh day in the Octave of All Saints.

As we began to say in yesterday’s lesson, the holy men of this most blessed city, according to the quality of their merits, shall be joined to the choirs of the heavenly spirits. Those who master (dominantur) in themselves all the vices and desires shall be brought into the order of the Dominations; those who, having received the virtues, surpass the merits of the elect, and are first (principantur) among the chosen brethren, shall receive the lot of the Principalities. Those who, ruling over themselves, and clinging always to the fear of God, are able to rule and judge others with a tranquil mind, are the thrones of the Creator. Those who are full of love for God and their neighbor have received their lot among the Cherubim. Those who, enkindled by the love of heavenly contemplation, are fed only by the love of eternity, are counted among the Seraphim. Therefore, brethren, let us so act here (on this earth) through virtuous deeds, that we may merit to be joined forever to the companies of the citizens of heaven.

Angels with symbols of the Passion, and in the lower rank, various prophets, painted on the ceiling of the one of the four sacristies of the Holy House of Loreto, 1484-93, by Melozzo da Forlì. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

A Very Curious Legend of St Raphael

The revised version of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, in the notes to the entry for the feast of St Raphael the Archangel, says that “In the Ethiopic Synaxarium... is a curious account of the dedication of a church to St Raphael in an island off Alexandria early in the fifth century.” A reference is given for an English translation of this Synaxarium, which is basically the Eastern version of the Martyrology, but no further information is given about the dedication or what makes it curious. In the marvelous age of the internet, I was able to track the text down at the following website, (https://stmichaeleoc.org/html/Pagumen_03.htm) where I discovered what a spectacular understatement “curious” is in describing this legend.

“On this day are commemorated the glorious angel Raphael the archangel, the third of the vigilant, holy and heavenly archangels; and the dedication of his church, which was built to him on an island outside the city of Alexandria in the days of Saint Theophilus the Archbishop (385-412, the predecessor of St Cyril); and the miracle which was made manifest therein, and took place thus.

A certain rich woman from the city of Rome came to Saint Theophilus the Archbishop, and with her were her son and a picture of the glorious Archangel Raphael, and much money, which she had inherited from her parents. ... And Saint Abba Theophilus built many churches, and among them was the church, which was on the island outside the city of Alexandria, and was dedicated in the name of the glorious Archangel Raphael; and Abba Theophilus the Archbishop finished the building thereof and consecrated it as it were this day.

And whilst the believers were praying in the church, behold the church trembled, and was rent asunder, and it moved about. And they found that the church had been built upon the back of a whale... on which a very large mass of sand had heaped itself. Now the whale lay firmly fixed in its place, and the treading of the feet of the people upon it cut it off from the mainland; and it was Satan who moved the whale so that he might throw down the church.

And the believers and the archbishop cried out together, and made supplication to the Lord Christ, and they asked for the intercession of the glorious Archangel Raphael. And God, the Most High, sent the glorious angel Raphael, and he had mercy on the children of men, and he drove his spear into the whale, saying unto him, ‘By the commandment of God stand still, and move not thyself from thy place’; and the whale stood in his place and moved not.

And many signs and wonders were made manifest, and great healings of sick folk took place in that church. And this church continued to exist until the time when the Muslims reigned, and then it was destroyed, and the whale moved, and the sea flowed back again and drowned many people who dwelt in that place.”

The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has a mid-19th Ethiopian painting in tempera on canvas which represents this legend, in which we see the Archangel fixing his spear through the church building. Unfortunately, the lower part of it, which would have shown the whale, is missing.

Here is a more complete representation of the story, depicted in a mural in a monastery in Ethiopia. (This image is reproduced by the kind permission of Sara Genene.)

The Feast of St Michael and All Angels

The traditional title of today’s feast is “The Dedication of St Michael the Archangel”, a term already found ca. 650 A.D. in the lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite that survives, and in the ancient sacramentaries. The Martyrology erroneously refers this feast to the dedication of the famous shrine of St Michael on Mt Gargano in the Italian region of Puglia, following a medieval tradition attested by William Durandus at the end of the 13th century. In reality, the title comes from the dedication of a church built sometime before the mid-6th century on the via Salaria, about seven miles from the gates of Rome, and remained in use long after the basilica itself fell completely to ruin. The traditional Ambrosian liturgy, which borrowed the feast from Rome, has in a certain sense preserved the memory of its origin better than the Roman Rite itself; not only does it use the Roman name, but it also takes several of the Mass chants, as well as the Epistle and Gospel, from the common Mass for the dedication of a church.

The central panel of The Last Judgment, by Rogier van der Weyden, 1446-52, showing Christ above, and below, St Michael weighing the souls of the dead.

Despite the fact that the feast’s title refers specifically only to St Michael, September 29th is really the feast of all the Angels, as stated repeatedly in the texts of both the Office and Mass. The Introit is taken from Psalm 102, “Bless the Lord, all ye his angels: you that are mighty in strength, and execute his word, hearkening to the voice of his orders.”

This text is repeated in part in the Gradual.

The Communion is taken from the Old Latin version of the canticle Benedicite, “Bless the Lord, ye angels of the Lord: sing a hymn, and exalt him above all forever.” (Daniel 3, 58)

The collect of the Mass makes no reference to St Michael at all: “O God, who in wondrous order assign the duties of Angels and of men: mercifully grant that our life on earth be guarded by those who continually stand in Thy presence and minister to Thee in heaven.”

The Lauds hymn of the Office speaks in its first stanza of all the Angels, and in the following three of Ss Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, the only Archangels specifically named in the Bible. In the Greek version of the book of Tobias (12, 15), however, St Raphael refers to himself as “one of the seven holy Angels, who present the prayers of the saints, and who go in before the glory of the Holy One.” This gave rise to a Byzantine custom of depicting seven Archangels standing together around the Lord; many icons of this motif give names to the remaining four from various apocryphal sources. One is called Uriel, who is mentioned several times in the Book of Enoch which St Jude quotes in his epistle (verses 14-15). The names of the remaining three are not the same in all sources; in the 19th century icon seen below, they are given as Jegudiel, Selaphiel and Barachiel.

The Byzantine feast of all the Angels is kept on November 8th, and like the Roman feast, originated with the dedication of a church; this was a basilica in Constantinople known as the Michaelion, traditionally said to have been built by Constantine himself. The formal title of the feast is “The Synaxis of the Great Commanders (ἀρχιστρατήγων) Michael and Gabriel, and the rest of the Bodiless Powers.” Curiously, the liturgical texts of the feast make no reference to St Raphael, nor to any of the other Angels, nor to the origin of the celebration.

In the Middle Ages, many places imitated the Roman custom of celebrating a second feast of St Michael, commemorating the famous apparition which led to the building of the shrine on Mt Gargano. In northern Europe, however, we find instead the feast of “St Michael on Mount Tumba”, the Latin name of the celebrated Mont-St-Michel, as for example in the Use of Sarum, which kept it on October 16th. A votive Mass of all the Angels was already in common use in the early ninth century, as attested by Alcuin of York, and is present among the votive Masses in every medieval missal. However, only very rarely does one find a feast of St Gabriel or of the Guardian Angels in the pre-Tridentine period; a Mass of St Raphael is sometimes found among the votive Masses especially to be said for the sick, but I have seen no no more than a handful of references to an actual feast day for him in the medieval period.

In the year 1670, Pope Clement X added to the general Calendar of the Roman Rite a feast of the Guardian Angels, which had been granted to the Austrian Empire by Paul V at the beginning of the century. The feast was kept in some places on the first Sunday of September, but the common date, October 2, was chosen as the first free day after the feast of St Michael.

The Three Archangels and Tobias, by Francesco Botticini, 1470

Pope Benedict XV, who reigned from 1914 to 1922, took a particular interest in devotion to the Angels. At the end of 1917, he raised the feast of St Michael to the highest grade, double of the first class, along with the March 19 feast of St Joseph. In 1921, he added the feasts of Ss Gabriel and Raphael to the general Calendar, the former on the day before the Annunciation, the latter on October 24 for no readily apparent reason. The feast of St Michael’s Apparition was removed from the General Calendar in 1960; in the post-Conciliar liturgical reform, Ss Gabriel and Raphael have been added to September 29th, and their proper feasts suppressed, along with the traditional reference in the title to the church dedication.

The Messenger Angel

Anonymous, the Archangel Gabriel, depicted on the predella of the high altar at the subsidiary church of Pesenbach, Upper Austria, 1495

In the traditional Roman calendar, the feast days of saints are sometimes clustered together to form archipelagos of holiness that allow the faithful to meditate longer on a sacred mystery. These archipelagos do not always consist of consecutive days. On January 15, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Paul the First Hermit, and two days later she celebrates the Saint who discovered that Saint Paul was the first hermit, St. Antony the Abbot. September 29 is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, and three days later is the feast of the Guardian Angels (October 2). On February 11, the universal Church celebrates the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes, and one week later, some locales are permitted to celebrate the feast of the Saint to whom Our Lady of Lourdes appeared, St. Bernadette Soubirous (even though she died on April 16). St Agnes’ feast day is January 21, and on January 28 the Church commemorates the apparition of St. Agnes to her parents when they were praying at her tomb eight days later. September 8 celebrates the Mother of God’s birthday, September 12 Her most holy name, and September 15 her Seven Sorrows.

Often, however, the clusters of which I speak are formed by two consecutive feasts. On January 25, the Church celebrates the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, and the day before she remembers Paul’s faithful companion Saint Timothy. The feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is August 15 and that of her father Saint Joachim August 16. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross is September 14 and the feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin September 15. The Augustinian friars celebrated the Conversion of Saint Augustine on May 5, and as a result, the feast of St. Monica, who was so instrumental in her son’s conversion, was placed on the Roman calendar on May 4. [1]

We should not be surprised, then, to see in the 1962 Roman calendar the feast of St. Gabriel the Archangel on March 24, and the Annunciation on March 25. What is surprising is how long it took to make this obvious pairing. While the Annunciation is one of the oldest feasts in Christendom, the feast of Mary’s messenger did not find its rightful place until 1921. But before we turn to that feast, let us learn more about the angel that it honors.

The Angel

Along with Saints Michael and Raphael, Gabriel is one of only three angels mentioned by name in the canonical Scriptures. [3] Unlike Michael, the Bible does not refer to Gabriel as an archangel, but he is nonetheless recognized as such by the Church. As Pope St. Gregory the Great explains, angels as an order are the spirits that deliver messages of lesser importance, and archangels are, among other things, the order of spirits that deliver messages of greater importance. [3] Since the message that Gabriel was delivering was of the utmost importance, it stands to reason that he was an archangel.

Gabriel appears four times in the Bible, twice in the Old Testament and twice in the New. In Daniel 8, 15-26 and 9, 21-27, the archangel explains to the prophet Daniel the meaning of his perplexing visions. Gabriel may also be the subject of Daniel 10, 5-6, which describes a dazzling man clad in linen and gold. Jewish tradition holds that Gabriel is also the angel who destroyed Sodom and the host of Sennacherib, the angel who buried the body of Moses (as opposed to Michael? See Jude 9), and the angel who marked the figure Tau on the foreheads of the Elect (Ezekiel 9:4). [4]

Gabriel also appears in apocryphal literature. In the Book of Enoch, he is a ferocious guardian of Israel, ordered by God to “proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication” (1 Enoch 10, 9).

In the New Testament, Gabriel appears once to Zachary (Luke 1, 5-25) and once to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1, 26-38). However, it is not unreasonable to believe, as some in the early Church did, that Gabriel is also the angel who appeared to Saint Joseph (Matt. 1, 20 & 24; 2, 13 & 19) and the shepherds (Luke 2, 8-12), and that he consoled or “strengthened” Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22, 43). Accordingly, on his feast day we pray that he console and strengthen us as well. [5]

And what will Gabriel’s role be at the end of time? Matthew 24:31 mentions angels with a trumpet foretelling the end of the world, but Gabriel is not named. The earliest reference to “Gabriel’s horn” is in a hymn by the Armenian Saint Nerses the Gracious (1102-1173); from there it passed into Armenian Christian art. Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) is the first time that Gabriel blowing his trumpet appears in English; the trope later became ubiquitous in Black spirituals and songs such as “The Eyes of Texas” (1903). Although there is no authoritative Catholic source for this belief, it is not unreasonable to imagine that the angel who announced Christ’s First Coming will announce His Second.

The name Gabriel is Hebrew for “God is my strength” or the “strength of God.” If Gabriel did indeed destroy Sodom as well as a host of bastards and reprobates, the appropriateness of the name is not difficult to grasp. But how does divine strength relate to his all-important role as messenger to the Blessed Virgin Mary? According to Gregory the Great, “God’s strength” (“Gabriel”) announced the coming of the Lord “of heavenly powers, mighty in battle”—in other words, an angel whose name refers to divine power is the herald for the Person who wields divine power. Similarly, St. Bernard of Clairvaux notes that since Jesus Christ is “the power of God” (1 Cor. 1, 34), it is fitting that His Incarnation be announced by an angel of that name. “On one hand, Christ is called the strength or power of God,” Bernard preaches, “on the other, the angel: the angel only nominally, but Christ substantively as well.” [7]

Theological Tutor

Saint Gabriel deserves special attention in our thoughts and imagination because he is a stern but merciful teacher of theology done rightly. When he visits the Levite priest Zachary, the archangel announces the good news that he is to be the father of the Forerunner of the Messiah despite his age and that of his wife. Zachary, however, perhaps puffed up on his pedigreed learning, balks. “Whereby shall I know this?” he asks. “For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (Luke 1, 18). Zachary’s question springs from doubt rather than faith; the message of God does not fit into his paradigm of what he thinks he knows, and so he is apt to reject it. Consequently, Gabriel rebukes him:

And the angel answering, said to him: ‘I am Gabriel, who stand before God: and am sent to speak to thee, and to bring thee these good tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall come to pass, because thou hast not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time’ (Luke 1, 19-20).

James Tissot, "The Vision of Zacharias," 1886-1894

Gabriel’s next apparition is to a fifteen-year-old girl in Nazareth named Mary. When he announces a far more momentous event, that she will be the Mother of God, the simple maiden too asks a question: “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” (Luke 1:34). Mary knows how the birds and bees work, and she also knows (according to St. Thomas Aquinas)[8] that she has made a vow of perpetual virginity. She does not doubt the angel, but she bravely asks a question of a different order: in light of what I hold, how will things (which I know by faith will come to pass) come to pass?

Rather than punish her, the angel rewards her with an answer. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,” he explains, “and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

Leonardo da Vinci, "The Annunciation," ca. 1472

God does not mind when we ask pressing questions: as St. John Henry Newman famously stated, a thousand questions do not add up to a single doubt. The key is whether our questions are an outgrowth of faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum) or an attempt to undermine the faith in light of our own fancy druthers. St. Gabriel’s schooling of Zachary and Mary offers an invaluable lesson in how to do, and how not to do, Catholic theology. All Catholic theologians, I submit, can be divided into two categories: Zecharian theologians whose uncertainties dead end into heresy and apostasy, and Marian theologians who push the envelope but never doubt the first principles of the Faith. Thanks be to God, Zachary learned his lesson the hard way, and we pray that his modern counterparts will do the same.

Patronages

As the most important messenger in the history of the universe, the Archangel Gabriel is the patron saint of a wide array of trades and hobbies that involve communication. The heavenly herald is a patron of broadcasters, communication workers, diplomats, information workers, messengers, military signals, postal workers, radio, telecommunications, telegraphs, telephones, and television. And if the angel is a patron of postal workers, why not stamp collectors? Hence Gabriel is the protector and promoter of philatelists.

What is less clear is why St. Gabriel is invoked against rheumatism. Perhaps the angel’s alacrity in carrying messages back and forth from Heaven gave hope to people suffering from bad joints, or perhaps artistic portrayals of Gabriel genuflecting limberly before the Virgin were a similar source of inspiration.

The Feast

Angels were added to the Church calendar gradually. In A.D. 530, Pope Boniface II consecrated a basilica in Michael’s honor on the Salarian Way about seven miles from Rome, with the ceremonies beginning on the evening of September 29 and ending the following day. Subsequent celebrations of this dedication were held first on September 30 and later on September 29. In the traditional calendar, “Michaelmas,” as it is also called, maintains the official title “The Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel,” even though the basilica it commemorates disappeared over a thousand years ago.

Michaelmas also commemorates all the heavenly hosts (including Gabriel and Raphael by name in the Divine Office), but the primary focus is on St. Michael. Over time, the Church began to see the wisdom of singling out particular angels for liturgical veneration. In 1670, Pope Clement X included the Feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2 of the universal calendar, the first available day after Michaelmas. And in 1921, Pope Benedict XV added separate feasts celebrating the divine missions of the Archangels Gabriel and Raphael, the latter on October 24 and the former on March 24.

Pope Benedict XV

The Holy Father’s rationale is worthy of reflection. According to the official annals of the Holy See, Benedict XV acted “in compliance with the hopes and wishes of many bishops” and “was deeply moved by their specific, valid arguments.” In consultation with the Sacred Congregation of Rites, he authorized a mandatory Office and Mass for the Feasts of the Holy Family, Gabriel, and Raphael. “It escapes no one’s notice,” he writes,

how right and salutary (aequum et salutare) it is for the domestic family and for society itself to foster and propagate the association of the Holy Family that has been established by the Apostolic See, strengthened by laws, and honored with indulgences and special privileges for sodalities and parishes—and, with this same end in mind, to worship and celebrate the Holy Family of Nazareth in the universal Church through a particular liturgical rite and with a continual and fruitful meditation on their kindnesses and imitation of their virtues.

The Pope continues:

It is no less fitting as well, for the increase of piety and of actual association with the Holy Family, to commemorate with religious celebration the divine mission of both Archangels, namely, Saint Gabriel for announcing the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, and Saint Raphael, whose kindnesses bestowed on the family of Tobias are described in the Sacred Scriptures.[9]

The feast instituted by Pope Benedict XV is a great gift to the Church: the Divine Office draws the faithfuls’ attention to his appearance in the Book of Daniel as well as his disciplining of Zachary in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, which is nowhere highlighted properly elsewhere in the liturgical year, old or new. Drawing from a sermon by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (which is in the Matins readings), the Collect of the Mass focuses on a wondrous fact: that of all the billions of angels created by God, Gabriel was chosen from all eternity to announce the mystery of the Divine Incarnation:

O God, who among all the other angels didst choose the Archangel Gabriel to announce the mystery of Thine Incarnation, grant kindly: that we who celebrate his feast on earth may feel his very patronage in Heaven. Thou who livest.

The Postcommunion Prayer for the Mass is likewise instructive:

Having partaken of the mysteries of Thy Body and Blood, O Lord our God, we beseech Thy clemency: that as we know that Gabriel announced Thine Incarnation, so too with his help, may we obtain the benefits of the same Incarnation. Thou who livest.

The Postcommunion artfully connect the archangel’s message to the Incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Incarnation that happens at every valid celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We address Jesus Christ in this prayer (as we did at the Collect) as the Person who became Incarnate for our sake, at the announcement of his servant Gabriel. But the fact of the Incarnation is one thing, the benefits thereof another. The demons figured out that God became man, but it did not profit them. We pray that the (non-fallen) angel who helped bring out the Incarnation will help us benefit from its effects.

The Novus Ordo

In the 1969 Roman Missal, September 29 is the combined “Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels.” No official reason was given for what Dr. Peter Kwasniewski calls an “almost rabid smushing together” of feasts [10] (as opposed to the archipelagic clustering mentioned earlier), but it may have had something to do with the antiquarian tendencies of Archbishop Bugnini and his colleagues, who disdained relatively recent additions to the calendar. Whatever the reason, it was, in our view, an unhelpful reduction, and for four reasons.

First, it is more appropriate to honor St. Gabriel on March 24 than in late September. So what if for most of the history of the Roman Rite Gabriel was indirectly honored only on Michaelmas? The Ethiopian Church has honored Gabriel with his own feast for centuries, the Coptic Church honors him with three feasts, and the Byzantine Rite does with two. (In the latter, one of the feasts falls on March 26, the day after the Annunciation.) For Rome to give Gabriel his own feast on the eve of the Annunciation is a no-brainer, and for Rome to annul this long overdue development (which is in keeping with the other apostolic churches) forty-seven years later is lamentable and, we might add, hardly ecumenical.

Second, it is beneficial to meditate on the nature and ministries of the angels, especially in a materialist age such as ours that forgets or denies a vast unseen spiritual world and the countless invisible acts of angelic mediation that are taking place right now in the realms of both nature and supernature. Peppering the calendar with commemorations of angels heightens “angel awareness” throughout the year, and that is good.

Third—and continuing with the topic of angelic ministries—having different feasts for different angels is fitting because different angels have different missions, as the Scriptures make clear. The Church reserves a day to celebrate all the Saints in Heaven (November 1), but she still observes individual saints’ days in order to honor their peculiar talents and graces. Similarly, the Church can institute an All Angels’ Day if she wishes (which I am not recommending since Michaelmas arguably fulfills this function in both calendars), but she should still honor some angels on other days.

Fourth, the family is arguably under assault like never before, and it needs all the resources it can get. If Pope Benedict XV was right in his belief that devotion to Gabriel increases devotion to the Holy Family (and we believe he was), then the calendar is now less effective in “increasing piety” and tightening our bonds to the “association” of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And that is not good for the family or for society. 

Let us pray that Saint Gabriel the Archangel is once again given the honor he is due by the people of God—before he blows his horn.

This article appears in the 2022 Winter/Spring issue of The Latin Mass magazine. Many thanks to the editors of TLM for its republication here.

Notes

[1] In the Novus Ordo calendar, a similar batching occurs by moving Monica’s feast day to August 27, the day before the Feast of St. Augustine. It is, however, less appropriate, for Monica is closely tied to Augustine’s conversion rather than his death, which occurred four decades after hers.

[2] In the book of Tobias / Tobit, Raphael states that he is one of the seven Angels “who stand before the Lord” (12, 15). Filling in the blanks, Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Christians identify the other four Archangels as Uriel, Jegudiel or Jehudiel, Selaphiel or Salathiel, and Barachiel. The names of these angels, however, are taken from Jewish and Christian apocrypha and not from the Bible.

[3] Homily 32, 8-9.

[4] See Hugh Pope, “St. Gabriel the Archangel,” The Catholic Encyclopedia,. vol. 6. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909), 23 Jan. 2022.

[5] See the Lauds Hymn Placare, Christe, Servulis.

[6] Homily 32, 8-9.

[7] Homily 1 on Missus est, 2, trans. mine.

[8] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.28.4.

[9] AAS 13 (1921), 543, trans. mine.

[10] Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness (Angelico Press, 2017), 222.