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.