As I set out to paint, I realized that if I am to follow the path of an icon writer, I needed to pray. Having been raised Catholic, prayer is not unfamiliar me. Today, I would not consider myself Catholic, and I would say that I meditate rather than pray. But I can, and will pray. As I read the Rules for the Icon Painter, I recognized that I needed to understand better who Gabriel, the Archangel, is.
Perhaps I should mention first why I chosen the icon that I did. Very simply, I like angels. I knew I was going to paint an icon of an angel and I chose Gabriel for several reasons. First, I find it interesting that Archangel Gabriel is important in many different faiths. To Christians he is known as the angel who announced to Mary that he was carrying the Christ child and in Islam he is credited with delivering the Quran to Mohammed. Gabriel is God's messenger...plain and simple, he works for no one else.
Some interesting facts about Gabriel. The Feast days for Gabriel is March 26th and the July 16th. The first is original feast day,which follows the Feast of the Annunciation, when Gabriel announced to Mary that she was carrying the Christ child. The second date is a newer feast day adopted by some churches as the original feast day falls during Lent, a time of fasting and not conducive to feast days. Gabriel is the bearer of God's messages, and as such is the Patron Saint of Communication and postal workers. He is one of the two highest ranking angels, and is considered to be seated at God's left side. In addition to being God's messenger, he is the archangel of annunciation, humanity, mercy, vengeance, truth, hope, revelation, and death.
The name Gabriel means "Man of God." He appears in the Bible many times; first in the Old Testament when he announces to Daniel the prophecy of seventy weeks, which foretold the timing of important events to come for the people of Israel. He was the angel who buried Moses and it was also Gabriel who announced the birth of John the Baptist, in addition to Christ.
Gabriel is assigned the task of selecting souls from heaven to be born into the earthly world. It is said the he spends the nine months in the womb with the developing child preparing him/her for their life on earth. When the child is born, Gabriel presses his fingers to the child's lips, at once preventing the child from sharing what Gabriel has taught him/her and creating the cleft found below a person's nose.
Gabriel's symbols are the lily and the trumpet. Gabriel is expected to blow this trumpet to announce the second coming of Christ.
