(v.2, #19, published by The White Lodge, copyright 1980) "Archangel Gabriel has been known throughout history by a variety of names. We find him described in scriptures, in the sacred writings of the Church, in religious art, and even in his own messages to us as the angel of the annunciation, the angel of consolation, the bearer of ascension's flames, the archangel of the redemption and the guardian of purity's flame. We are all familiar with these titles and offices in hierarchy which the Lord Gabriel holds, but one very personal phase of his service to earth's evolutions is not so well known. He says simply, 'I am your friend. You know me well, and when you say, "Hail Gabriel, friend of old!" and we greet one another as comrades and we embrace, I am not so far removed from you except in great spheres of cosmic consciousness which are the forcefield of my attainment.' He explains his offer of friendship to us in greater detail: 'I am the friend of the Mother. I am the friend of the Mother's friend. I am the friend of all who befriend the ascended masters and their chelas. My legions bear the banner of friendship, for we desire that you should know the meaning of divine friendship. 'Some of you have longed for a true friend--one to whom you could speak, pour out your heart, share every part of your soul. Some of you have been disappointed again and again. You have sought friends in father and mother and brother and sister and associates through all of your life. But the friend whom you have sought, you have not found. 'Have you been betrayed? It is the story of every lightbearer. Have you been persecuted? It is the story whereby you know you are of the light. I come to communicate divine friendship. It is a cup for which you must reach. For when you seek limited friendship in limitation, beloved ones, you receive what you seek.' There seems to be one block to the free exchange of divine friendship between the realm of the archangels and the men and women with whom they desire to be friends. Faith is such a necessary quality and one that is so hard for many to accept. Gabriel tells us that 'it is seldom realized by mankind that we long to serve. But where there is no faith in our existence or in the love which we bear to mankind, there is a fence erected there that prevents the answer to your prayer.' We may reach up for divine friendship and divine comfort, and the cup is given. But there is a price to be paid. It is our responsibility to return the cup. Gabriel says, 'The ascended masters and angels are loyal friends to the uttermost. We are loyal. We share a trust. As we give our friendship, committing ourselves in loyalty undying, we expect the same. We expect our friends upon earth to shun evil and the ways of evil.' We read in the Epistle of the Apostle James (2:23) that 'Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.' Gabriel has told us that he 'was the friend of Abraham who was the friend of God.' He is also 'The friend of the prophets' and 'the friend of all who enter the path of the ascension.' The archangel of purity's ray admonishes us: 'If you desire to ascend, then I say, desire it with your whole being, your whole mind, your whole consciousness. Do not trifle with the Law and the Law will not trifle with you. Become the friend of the Law and the Law will work for you. Serve the light and the light will serve you.' Hear the code by which an archangel lives: 'I am Gabriel, I am the friend of God. I do not compromise my friendship with him for friendship with those who have betrayed him. There is a cosmic honor flame. Live by it! Serve it! And know what it means to have access to the courts of heaven. Know what it means to speak the name of Gabriel and to have Gabriel at your side. Consider the price: the cosmic honor flame is the flame of the Holy Spirit. It is the flame of the ascension. All who have not the flame, I say, of them they shall not pass into the circle of our oneness, into the Guru/chela relationship. They shall not cross over the line of the circle of our wholeness. Therefore, search the soul!' The mission of Gabriel as the angel of the annunciation is perhaps better known to us than any of the other ways in which he serves mankind. We are familiar with paintings by the Renaissance masters depicting Gabriel as he holds a lily in his hand and addresses the Virgin Mary. We normally associate the lily (which is the flower which carries the flame of the ascension in the elemental kingdom) with the appearances of Gabriel. In many stained-glass windows of cathedrals throughout the world, we see this symbolism. In the thought of a lily held in the hand of an archangel, we are able to receive the concept of the conveyance of cosmic purity. As Gabriel explains, 'The lily symbolizes the chalice of the soul awaiting the resurgence of the divine light and reaching out the mouth of its longing toward the universe that it might receive the boon of cosmic grace and extend it outward in all of its activities--an external offering from an internal source, an internal creativity, an internal imagining, an imagining born from the mind of God by divine wings and divine winds upon a mystic sea. While billowing sails convey this precious cargo to the mind, the tradewinds of exchange are also present, and men understand that they will trade their ignorance for divine wisdom, that they will trade their temporal states for infinite power, that they will trade their vision of human love for divine love and see the stepping stones on the way.' Not only did Gabriel stand before Mary to announce to her the birth of Jesus, but he also stands before every man, woman and child of earth and announces to us in the name of Almighty God our divinity and our mission to bring forth the Divine Manchild within. He announces the birth of perfection within us, the perfection of the Christ. He says, 'I announce to you that you are a Son of God, and that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Out of the light of the being of the divine nature shall come forth the Divine Manchild. 'And this is the meaning of the annunciation. When you receive the annunciation of the birth of the Christ within you, it means that you have assembled--by the process of many efforts and much striving--evidence before the Lords of Karma and your own God Self that you are being promoted to a new level of Christ-awareness. At that moment I come with the annunciation. On many occasions as it has been appointed to me to come to you with your annunciation, the fallen ones have read already the victory, the potential victory of your soul. And therefore, one, two, or three days before my coming they have come to knock upon your door. They have brought to you the temptations of this world.' We are able to enjoy the reminiscences of an archangel as Gabriel continues to share with us his annunciation to Mary. 'And so, when I came to announce unto Mary, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee and with thy spirit; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus," it was the perpetuation of the thought of God for every human son made in the divine image. 'One of the remarkable cosmic miracles in connection with the birth of the Christ was Mary's instantaneous acceptance of my word and the Word of God which I bore to her. Have you thought about it--why it was that she was able to recognize on the instant that I stood in the presence of God? It was because, gracious ones, she had that readiness of consciousness and readiness of response to the will of God which had been stimulated in her long before she drew a breath in that precious and magnificent embodiment as Mary. It was because in a number of previous embodiments the divine ideals were drawn and magnetized into her consciousness, for she had the desire of manifesting cosmic grace unto the world. And it was the infinite and compassionate love of God and her hope for planetary mankind that caused her to accept the fiats of God and to say so readily and quickly, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord."' We also have a personal responsibility in this matter of the annunciation. As surely as Gabriel came to Anna and Joachim to announce to them the coming birth of their child Mary, as he came to Elizabeth and Zacharias to proclaim the coming of John the Baptist, as he stood before the Virgin Mary to announce the birth of the Saviour Jesus--so also he stands before the soul of each one of us. He transfers from his aura to our own, according to our free will, the energies of the Great Central Sun for our resurrection and our ascension. Gabriel says, 'I AM the angel of the annunciation. Therefore I announce to you your virgin birth in the womb of the Cosmic Virgin. I announce to you that you are of the seed of Alpha, that you have been sired by Almighty God, that you have been nourished by the fires of the heart of Omega, and that you have been set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel and for a sign, which is the sign of the Logos, which shall be spoken against. You have been sent into this world--although you are not of this world--as instruments of the Lord's judgment even as you have come to balance the scales of your own uses and misuses of God's energy.' Now we need to accept the torch from the hand of an archangel, to accept our divine mission for which we came into embodiment and to go forth as angels of annunciation ourselves, proclaiming the reality of life and, by the examples of our own lives, live to set all life free from bondage. We must go into the cities, go into the ghettos to all who are living in depression and fear, who are beset by demons and entities of death, suicide, drugs, abortion and all forms of misqualification of the sacred fire of the Father and the Mother. We must announce to those who have entered the death spiral that death is not real, that the lies which the fallen ones are whispering in their ear can be broken, that the spiral can be arrested, and that new spirals of God-victory can be initiated! Their lives can be completely transformed and converted by the Holy Spirit into the victorious life which the Christ offers to all who will accept. This is our divine mission as we march forth with Gabriel and the legions of his band. This is the reason for which we took embodiment on Terra. We descended proclaiming, 'Lo, I am come to do thy will, O God!' Throughout the ages we have lost sight of the goal. But now Gabriel, if we will accept him, stands before us again to proclaim the truth of our being and to announce to us anew the reality of our divinity. In return for this divine gift from an archangel, we must run to tell the good news to others until our world is ablaze with love and light and our planet is fulfilling its cosmic destiny."