The symbolism of the pelican feeding her young is rooted in a legend preceding Christianity that when food was scarce, the mother pelican would wound her breast with her beak and feed her young with her blood to prevent starvation.
Given this legend, one can understand why the early Christians adapted it to symbolize our Lord, Jesus Christ. The pelican symbolizes Jesus our Redeemer who gave His life for our redemption and continues to feed us with His body and blood in the Holy Eucharist.
The pelican is also part of our liturgical tradition. The image of the pelican is popular artwork for altar frontals, tabernacles and arches. In the hymn “Adoro te devote,” (written by St. Thomas Aquinas, whose feast day we celebrate on January 28, and translated into English by Gerard Manley Hopkins) the sixth verse reads:
Like what tender tales tell of the Pelican
Bathe me, Jesus Lord, in what Thy Bosom ran
Blood that but one drop of has the pow’r to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.
