Holy Pelican, Batman!
By: Andre Audette
Atop one of the stained-glass windows at Our Lady of Lourdes you will find an animal you might not otherwise associate with the Catholic Church: a pelican. Then, crack open the hymnal to St. Thomas Aquinas’s famous hymn Adoro Te Devote, and you’ll see the sixth verse start with the words “Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine,” translated as “Lord Jesus, Holy Pelican.” Next, take a gander at a painting of the crucifixion from the Middle Ages, and right at the very top of the cross you might see – you guessed it – a pelican. What’s with all the Catholic pelicans?
The tradition comes from an ancient allegory popular in Catholic churches of “the pelican in her piety.” The story goes that, in times of food scarcity, a mother pelican will use her beak to strike her own breast and cause it to bleed so her starving chicks can eat from her own lifeblood. If the food scarcity is severe enough, the mother might even bleed out to revive her dying children. In another variation of the story, a snake comes and attacks the chicks while the mother is away searching for food. Heartbroken, she tears open her side to save them with the healing properties of her blood.
But here’s an interesting zoological fact about pelicans: it’s only the Catholic ones that do this. That is to say, in nature, no pelicans actually do this! It is only our Pie Pelicane, Jesus Christ, who does this for us.
When we were starving, lost, and helpless, Jesus Christ gave us His own Body and Blood in the Eucharist to revive us. When we were dead in our own sin, He went to the Cross and was pierced for our transgressions, but blood and water flowed from His side to wash away our sins and bring us to new life. We, the chicks who seem so helpless to the viperous temptations of the devil, have no choice but to feast on the self-sacrifice of God.
The Pie Pelicane is a beautiful and challenging image for the Eucharist. Honestly, it is steeped with some gross imagery! Are we really going to drink our parent’s blood so we can live?
In John’s Gospel Jesus says, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” Another translation says, “unless you gnaw and chew on my flesh…” As soon as He is done speaking, the disciples respond, “this saying is hard; who can accept it?” Many returned to their former way of life and no longer followed Him.
We have a similar choice to make.
Studies show that a large percentage of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Now is a good time to reclaim the theological truths of the pelican: a God who feeds us with the sacrifice of Himself so that we might live.
Lord Jesus, Loving Pelican, save us with Your blood, of which a single drop can set the world free.