It is also commemorated as the "First Joyful Mystery" each time the rosary is prayed. Gabriel's visit to Mary in the Gospel of Luke is often called "The Annunciation," (Luke 1:26), an event that is celebrated on March 25. Gabriel the Archangel, the patron saint of communications workers, and his feast day is September 29. According to later legend, he is the unidentified angel in the Book of Revelation who blows the horn announcing the Judgment Day. In the New Testament, Gabriel is the angel who comes with the Holy Spirit to Zechariah and reveals that John the Baptist will be born to Elizabeth, and who visits Mary to reveal that she will give birth to Jesus. Gabriel is also, according to Jewish mythology, the voice that told Noah to gather the animals before the great flood, the invisible force that prevented Abraham from slaying Isaac, the invisible force that wrestled with Jacob, and the voice of the burning bush. In Talmud Yoma 79a, however, it is stated that Gabriel once fell into disgrace "for not obeying a command exactly as given, and remained for a while outside the heavenly Curtain." During this 21 day period, the guardian angel of Persia, Dobiel, acted as Gabriel's proxy. The Archangel is also attributed as the one who showed Joseph the way, the one who prevented Queen Vashti from appearing naked before King Ahasverus and his guests, and as one of the angels who buried Moses. In the Talmud, Gabriel appears as the destroyer of the hosts of Sennacherib "with a sharpened scythe which had been ready since Creation" (Sanhedrin 95b). Gabriel tells Daniel about the mysterious "Seventy weeks" (shavu-im shivim) that seem to indicate the end of the Babylonian captivity which lasted 70 years, whereupon Cyrus the Great allowed the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple by the Jews in his empire. Seventy weeks are decreed upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to forgive iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint the most holy place" (Dan. And he made me understand, and talked with me, and said: "Daniel, I have now come to make you skillful of understanding. Īnd while I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God and while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, approached close to me about the time of the evening offering. And I heard the voice of a man between the banks of Ulai, who called, and said: " Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision." So he came near where I stood and when he came, I was terrified, and fell upon my face but he said to me: "Understand, son of man for the vision belongs to the time of the end" (Dan. The specific references are as follows:Īnd it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, that I sought to understand it and, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. In the Book of Daniel, Gabriel appears to Daniel after the destruction of first Temple of Jerusalem, and after the subsequent Babylonian captivity of the Kingdom of Judah that followed. Scriptural references to Gabriel occur in both the Book of Daniel and in the apocryphal Book of Enoch. Gabriel thus offers great potential as a symbol of religious harmony and unity. He is thus a symbol of God's providential guidance to each of the Abrahamic faiths- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-and his appearances to their founders demonstrate that each religion has been rightly guided by God. Gabriel is more than a simple angel who watches over human beings he is one of the chief archangels who announce God's will to the central figures of faith: to Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.
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