Pelican in Piety
From my book, 'Entering Heaven on Earth':
"St. Thomas Aquinas’s Eucharistic hymn “Adoro Te Devote” has a verse that says (in the translation of Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.): “Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican; / Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran — / Blood whereof a single drop has power to win / All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.” The belief, then, was that the pelican is a symbol of self-sacrifice and love, for the pelican was said to nourish her young with blood from her own breast. As such, the pelican symbolizes Christ, who, in his sacrificial love for humanity, gives us life and feeds us with his own Body and Blood in the Eucharist.
Pelicans in nature do, in fact, often point their bills to their breasts when they groom themselves, and the pouches of the bills of certain pelicans turn bright red during their breeding season.
The “tender tale,” first recounted in the Physiologus, and repeated in other medieval bestiaries is a little more complex. Saint Isidore’s seventh-century text Etymologies, for example, reports that “the pel- ican (pelicanus) is an Egyptian bird inhabiting the solitary places of the river Nile, whence it takes its name, for Egypt is called Canopos. It is reported, if it may be true, that this bird kills its offspring, mourns them for three days, and finally wounds itself and revives its children by sprinkling them with its own blood.” Analogously, then, one finds in this tale a certain image of the Son, the offspring of the Father, who is killed (albeit most certainly not by the Father!) and lies dead for three days. One also finds, separately, the image of the Divine Son who wounds himself to give eternal life to us, his “offspring,” who are dead through sin. The latter image is more obvious and easier to comprehend, whereas the former is problematic; hence, it is often left unstated.
Signs are not always unambiguous, and these allegories drawn from nature and bestiaries are often ambivalent and equivocal. At best, they are a glimpse of the divine mystery of Christ, which is dimly reflected in the mirror of the created world, as Saint Paul says: “For now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor 13:12).
The pelican was also observed in some places to feed on lizards and serpents, and this became a figure of Christ devouring the demonic and so ridding the world of sin. From this, the pelican came to symbolize the protective and healing and nourishing works of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself for the salvation of all."
This embroidery of the Pelican is from a cope in the Dominican Nuns monastery in Caleruega, Spain.
Pelican in Piety
From my book, 'Entering Heaven on Earth':
"St. Thomas Aquinas’s Eucharistic hymn “Adoro Te Devote” has a verse that says (in the translation of Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.): “Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican; / Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran — / Blood whereof a single drop has power to win / All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.” The belief, then, was that the pelican is a symbol of self-sacrifice and love, for the pelican was said to nourish her young with blood from her own breast. As such, the pelican symbolizes Christ, who, in his sacrificial love for humanity, gives us life and feeds us with his own Body and Blood in the Eucharist.
Pelicans in nature do, in fact, often point their bills to their breasts when they groom themselves, and the pouches of the bills of certain pelicans turn bright red during their breeding season.
The “tender tale,” first recounted in the Physiologus, and repeated in other medieval bestiaries is a little more complex. Saint Isidore’s seventh-century text Etymologies, for example, reports that “the pel- ican (pelicanus) is an Egyptian bird inhabiting the solitary places of the river Nile, whence it takes its name, for Egypt is called Canopos. It is reported, if it may be true, that this bird kills its offspring, mourns them for three days, and finally wounds itself and revives its children by sprinkling them with its own blood.” Analogously, then, one finds in this tale a certain image of the Son, the offspring of the Father, who is killed (albeit most certainly not by the Father!) and lies dead for three days. One also finds, separately, the image of the Divine Son who wounds himself to give eternal life to us, his “offspring,” who are dead through sin. The latter image is more obvious and easier to comprehend, whereas the former is problematic; hence, it is often left unstated.
Signs are not always unambiguous, and these allegories drawn from nature and bestiaries are often ambivalent and equivocal. At best, they are a glimpse of the divine mystery of Christ, which is dimly reflected in the mirror of the created world, as Saint Paul says: “For now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor 13:12).
The pelican was also observed in some places to feed on lizards and serpents, and this became a figure of Christ devouring the demonic and so ridding the world of sin. From this, the pelican came to symbolize the protective and healing and nourishing works of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself for the salvation of all."
This embroidery of the Pelican is from a cope in the Dominican Nuns monastery in Caleruega, Spain.