Devotion August 2018 - LPNI

 In the 13th century Thomas Aquinas wrote the hymn Adoro te devote.  One verse reads:

Thou, like the pelican to feed her brood,

Didst pierce Thyself to give us living food;

Thy Blood, O Lord, one drop has pow’r to win

Forgiveness for our world and all its sin.

I love watching pelicans fly along the gulf coast of the United States.  Several years ago I decided to learn more about pelicans and was amazed what I learned.  For example, in ancient Egypt there was a myth that if the mother pelican could not find food for her chicks, using her bill, she would tear open her own breast and let her chicks feed on her blood so they would live.  By the second century, Christians were using this analogy to explain what Jesus had done on the cross.  He had shed his blood so that through faith in him they too would live.  The “pelican in its piety” thus became one of the earliest symbols of the passion of Christ.

But early Christians did not only see the pelican as a symbol of Jesus’ passion, they also saw in it what Jesus wanted them to demonstrate to others.  Jesus had said to his first disciples: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12 ESV).  Early Christians took these words of Jesus to heart.  Plagues were common in the Roman Empire.  When a family member of a pagan Roman household contracted a plague, other family members would put the infected person out on the road to die.  Hopefully, no one else would then contract that plague.  The sick would have died except that Christians often took these dying people into their own homes and nursed them back to health.  Many Christians died, but many more lived as a result of their love.

Also, there were many Roman women who were forced to give up their babies.  The husband in the Roman household held all authority over which children would be raised.  If he did not want his wife to be pregnant, he would force her to have an abortion.  If his wife gave birth and he did not want the child, he would order his wife to place the baby out on the road to die.  Again, Christians came along and picked up the babies, took them home, and raised them as their own.  A good friend, who is a parish nurse, informed me this still takes place in the world.

As a pastor, loving others as Jesus has loved us, is something I have not always seen in the church.  I have been disheartened by negative, judgmental people who seem more successful in driving people away from Jesus than attracting them to him.  Over the years I have heard many so-called experts try to rationalize why churches seem to be declining: people are too busy, they are too worldly, etc.  I have never heard one say, “Maybe we have not listened to Jesus. Maybe we are not loving others as he loved us.”

But all is not lost.  I have seen such love among parish nurses throughout the world.  The same love demonstrated by early Christians is still alive and well in parish nursing!  Thank you nurses for being faithful to the loving command of Jesus.  May you be the light of the love of Jesus to re-ignite devotion to Jesus which is so desperately needed in the church and the world today.

Rev. Dr. Steven D. Simon

Onalaska, Texas, USA