The name Gabriel means, 'The Strength of
God.' St. Gabriel is strong, not with his own
strength, but with God's, and he imparts this
strength to the servants of God on earth. It is his
office to show how out of weakness God brings
strength. If I am weak by nature, I have only to
beg of God and He will send an Angel to make
me strong in Him and in the power of His grace.
For this reason St. Gabriel was the messenger
of the Incarnation. God, made Man, was the utmost
limit of which strength in weakness was capable.
The infinite power of God was joined to
the feebleness of the lowest rational nature that
God had created. Hence it was Gabriel who prophesied
to Daniel of the coming of the Messias. It was
Gabriel who announced to our Blessed Lady at
Nazareth that she was to be the Mother of God.
Adore God's strength made perfect in infirmity,
and learn to admire in the Saints of God the Divine
power imparted to them.
St. Gabriel is also generally believed to have
been the Angel sent to comfort Our Lord in His
sacred Agony. Then, more than ever, was the
Humanity of the Son of God emptied of all its
strength, and St. Gabriel came to minister strength
to Him in His human weakness. Pray that your
times of infirmity may prove the occasion of God's
strength in you, and that He may console you and
help you to persevere to the end, and to pass safely
through your last agony.