The Pelican

Psalm 102:6 - Similis factus sum pelicano solitudinis" - "I am like a pelican of the wilderness"

 AELW 11:306

The pelican, which in Lev. 11:18 and Deut. 14:18 is called “bittern,” is cited here for no other reason than that of its loneliness, although, according to Jerome, it has another quality, namely, that of reviving its young with its own blood, struck from its breast by its beak when the young have been killed by a serpent.(Jerome records this legend in his Regula monachorum. The Pelican-in-Her-Piety has become a striking symbol of Christ’s Atonement)*

And Cassiodorus most suitably to the theme describes it thus: “The pelican is an Egyptian bird, similar to the stork in the size of its body, which is always affected by a natural leanness, since, as the physiologists claim, with its bowel stretched throughout the inner organs, whatever it eats it passes on without any digestion. The result is that it is very little fattened by its own fat. It does not fly in a flock like other birds but consoles itself in solitary pleasure. There is said to be one kind that lives in swamps, and another that lives in deserted and secret places.”

And for that reason it is regarded as unclean in the Law, because it digests nothing that it eats, like a man who hears the Word of God and does not assimilate it."

*Note to the Note - The Rev. Dr. Stephen Starke Steve Starke also notes this in the LSB hymnal in Hymn 640 verse 3. I would show verse but need permission....