Sunday, November 3, 2013

St. Gerasimos, the Lion, and the Donkey

This is a lovely old story, a legend about a saint who is a favorite in the Eastern Orthodox church.  St. Gerasimos is out walking in the Jordan River valley, when he comes across a lion, limping and holding one paw up pathetically.  The lion holds his paw out to the saint, who sits down, examines the paw, removes a large thorn, and binds up the paw with a clean cloth.  Then the lion follows him back to the monastery and stays there, whereupon the monks give the lion a job.

I won't tell the whole story here, (You can read about it here.) but I retold it, painted three illustrations for it, and it has been published (with one illustration) in a small Catholic children's magazine called St. Mary's Messenger.  The story is in the Fall 2013 issue, which just came out.