Saint Gabriel

It was he indeed who dictated to Daniel his most famous prophecies and unveiled to him the secret of the death and reign of the Messiah:

It was he who announced the birth of the forerunner of Jesus;

It was he whom God the Father sent to the B Sainte Vierge Mother of Jesus, who appeared to Bertrand. lessed Virgin to announce to her the mystery of the Incarnation;

It was he who shared with the shepherds the birth of the Savior and indicated to them the way to find him;

It w as he who wa saint Joseph Special patron of the Congregation. rned Saint Joseph of Hero d's ho Hérode King of Judea whose wrath caused the flight of the Holy Family. micidal plans against the divine Child.

The iconographic attribute of Saint Gabriel is the lily or a scroll bearing these words: Ave, Maria. The lily, that symbol par excellence of virginity, relates not to the angel, but to the mission he had received to guarantee the preservation of virginity in the one who was to become Mother: it seems more appropriate to us, consequently, to place the lily between Mary and the messenger who greets her, rather than in the hands of the latter.

The Father Cabier, in his Caractérist Caractéristiques Work by Father Cahier dealing with Christian iconography and symbolism. iques, says, regarding the Annunciation: "The unicorn... was for the Middle Ages a symbol of indomitable strength forgetting its power in the bosom of a Virgin; thus it had become the emblem of virginity, but above all of the Incarnation of the Word in the womb of Our Lady. We see an example of this in a print... borrowed from an old German publication"... By a pious oddity that has its charm of naivety, the Annunciation takes the form of a hunt there where the Son of God, under the emblem of the unicorn, throws himself into the bosom of the Virgin par excellence... The hounds, urged on by the horn of the Archangel Gabriel, force it to take refuge in the bosom of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. Other paintings or sculptures are more explicit, and the inscriptions that accompany them leave almost nothing more to be sought. Thus, besides the fact that the titles of the Blessed Virgin are inscribed there in full letters, the four dogs that the huntsman leads on a leash are: Justice, Peace, Mercy, and Truth, and the tune that the archangel sounds is the Angelic Salutation.