There is much that could be said about the consecration of our new bishop on Saturday, but one image in particular stuck out to me from that day.

The cover art on the (forty-six page!) bulletin for the service was taken from a mosaic in Aachen Cathedral, in Germany. The mosaic depicts “The Pelican in her Pietry,” a classic medieval image of Christ. Medieval scholars believed (for whatever reason) that pelicans “nurse” their young by piercing their breasts to feed them with their own blood, a symbol that seemed to evoke both Christ’s sacrificial self-offering on the Cross and his continual self-offering in the Eucharist.

It is an image of Christ, as the program for the consecration notes, that is “both eucharistic and maternal in nature.”

It was an image that I was thinking about as I read through the bulletin while waiting for the service to begin. I happened to be sitting next to a dear friend, a priest with two young children even smaller than mine, someone with whom I’ve shared much of the complicated and sometimes-difficult experiences of parenthood and parish ministry alike. For both of us, having a bishop who is the mother of three teenagers and young adults was meaningful.

I was moved by the way in which this image of the pelican is a beautiful and complicated one: a depiction of the ways in which we offer ourselves to feed the people we love, and are fed by God’s own self-offering in turn.

But I was especially struck by a momentary glimpse, when Bishop Julia, after being vested, happened to turn—and we could see this image on her back.

What an image to choose, as the new leader of our portion of the church. It’s something I’ll be sitting with for a while. What does it mean to feed the people of our diocese from your own blood? What does it mean to be fed? What does it mean to carry this on your back, at every visitation, ordination, confirmation—at every sacramental event at which you serve during your time as bishop? How is this a comforting reminder of the maternal nature of a bishop’s ministry? And isn’t it kind of a troubling one?

I hope you’ll join your prayers with mine for Bishop Julia as her ministry officially begins. Bishop Alan has handed over the crozier; his time of shepherding our diocese is over, and Bishop Julia’s has begun! May Alan’s retirement offer him time for refreshment and rest, and may the Holy Spirit guide Bishop Julia in the weeks and months ahead!