Saint Gerasimus

A great number of disciples having come to place themselves under his guidance, he bui lt near Jourdain River miraculously crossed by the Hebrews. the Jordan a laura composed of seventy cells; in the middle there was a monastery intended for the housing of those who were to lead the cenobitic life. It was there that subjects were trained for the laura. Those who inhabited it were bound to the most rigorous silence; they nourished themselves only on bread, dates, and water. On Saturday and Sunday, they came to the church to participate in the holy mysteries. On those two days, they were allowed to eat something cooked in common and drink a little wine. No fire was ever lit in their cells; a reed mat served as their bed. In short, everything among them breathed the most exact poverty.

The inhabitants of Jericho, l earning Jéricho Place where Sabas had a hospital built. of the austerity of life of these good solitaries, wished to bring them some refreshments every Saturday and Sunday... It was on their part a very praiseworthy act of charity; but most of these mortified religious refused this small softening as being capable of harming their soul. They acted thus because they had learned from their spiritual father, Saint Gerasimus, that abstinence is the mother of perfect temperance, that it makes one more fit for vigils and drives away evil thoughts.

Our Saint carried abstinence even further than his brethren; he spent the entire Lent without taking any food other than the body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist; he also possessed all other virtues to an eminent degree. Saint Euthymius had such veneration for him that he would send to him those of his disciples whom he wished to lead to high perfection. Saint Gerasimus died on March 5, 475. He is named on this day in the Roman Martyrology.

His laura was a quarter of a league from the Jordan, on the side of Jericho. It still existed a hundred years after his death Jean Mosch Historian and author who visited the laura and recorded the miracles. . John Moschus, the historian of Saint Gerasimus, who visited it, heard the following account there: The Saint, being one day on the bank of the Jordan, saw a lion coming toward him that was walking on only three feet; it held the fourth in the air, into which a thorn had become embedded. It presented itself to Gerasimus, roaring from the pain it was suffering. The Saint, moved by compassion, removed the thorn, bandaged the wound it had caused, and sent the king of the desert away. But God wished to show, on this occasion, that the righteous who serve Him faithfully can subject the most ferocious beasts, just as they were subject to Adam before his sin; for the lion, as if it had been endowed with reason, did not leave him again and served him in his monastery more than a domestic animal could have done, without causing the slightest fear or the slightest harm to anyone. It remained thus for five years in the service of the monastery, at the end of which the Saint having died, it refused all food and went to expire on his tomb.

It is believed that this story gave painters the occasion to represent Sa int Jerome w saint Jérôme Father of the Church and author of the original biography of Saint Asella. ith a lion near him; he was thus confused with Saint Gerasimus because of the similarity of the name, which is sometimes found written as Jerome, due to poor spelling.

Lives of the Fathers of the Eastern Deserts.