March 24 is the traditional feast day of St Gabriel, Archangel.*
The Archangel Gabriel's encounter with Our Lady at the time of her fiat has inspired countless works of
art. In an Annunciation painting by Giovanni Bellini, a detail of which is shown above, Gabriel presents Mary with a
lilium candidum, commonly known as the Madonna Lily -- and also as the
Annunciation Lily.
Many sources describe the lily as signifying the Virgin's
freedom from sin and so it does. But, interestingly, some see the
lily as also standing for Our Lord's purity, such that the Archangel is symbolically giving Our Lord to the Blessed Mother when he presents her with the flower.
One should also note that in Bellini's lovely painting Archangel
Gabriel is wearing a crown of olive. Olive branches signify peace -- in this instance, the peace initiated
by Our Lord's incarnation. And, as noted in the post Silence, Annunciation, Incarnation, which features a painting by Simone Martini, the crown of olives can be seen as the crown of the Holy Ghost.
*This was the feast date set by the 1921 calendar. In 1969 it was moved to September 29, merging it with the feast of other archangels.
Image: Detail from Bellini's Annunciation. From Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.
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