Have you noticed this stained glass window in the Church? It's the image of a pelican feeding its young with its own blood.Fr. William Saunders writes about the Christian symbolism of the pelican HERE.
The image is rooted in a pre-Christian legend.
The legend was that in time of famine, the mother pelican wounded herself, striking her breast with the beak to feed her young with her blood to prevent starvation. Another version of the legend was that the mother fed her dying young with her blood to revive them from death, but in turn lost her own life.
