The Story
A wolf terrorized the farmers in Gubbio in the Middle Ages. This wolf would attack, alone, and kill livestock. It didn’t take long before he moved to attacking humans. When the residents tried to attack him with weapons he simply killed them. Saint Francis of Assisi hearing of this told the residents, who at this point were too scared to leave their houses, that he was going to leave the safety of the city and meet the wolf. The residents warned Francis to not go, surely this great man would be killed by the horrible wolf. Francis set out at once.
As the wolf saw Francis approach he snarled at the Saint, showing his teeth, hair on the back of his neck standing up. The wolf readied for his attack. Francis commanded the wolf to stop, making the sign of the cross as he did. The wolf went from an angry animal to being as calm as anyone’s dog at home.
Francis hold the wolf’s head in hands spoke to the wolf as if he was a human. Speaking to his “brother wolf” Francis promised to make peace between the wolf. If the wolf promised to stop attacking the city the residents would stop trying to kill the wolf, forgiving him of all that he had done prior.
At that moment the wolf closed his eyes in agreement with Francis. Upon seeing this Francis went further, promising the wolf that the residents would feed and care for him as one of their own as long as he promised to never attack any animal or human again.
Francis offered the wolf his hand and in turn, the wolf put his paw in Francis hand. The agreement made Francis commanded the wolf to return with him to the city. In the city center the people were astonished to see with their own eyes this horrible creature walking beside Francis as a dog would his person. Francis spoke to the residents about the agreement the wolf made. Happy to know their aggressor was now a friend, they agreed to care for the wolf.
The wolf lived out his life spending time at the houses of the residents, receiving food and water. More than nutrition the wolf received love and belonging. When the wolf died the city mourned the loss of the animal once their tormentor. The city gave the wolf an honorable burial and continued to honor him building a church over his grave. In 1872 a skeleton of a large wolf was found during renovations to that very church giving credence to the story.
What can we learn?
Anyone that knows anything about wolves know they are pack animals. Wolves live life in a hierarchy and share food and protect each other. The fact the wolf in this story is alone and is terrorizing the city with impunity checks out. Lone wolves are often those that are shunned from their pack for one reason or another and have to depend on themselves to survive.
All this wolf ever wanted was to belong to something greater than himself. He wanted, needed to feel the protection of others around him. When he didn’t have that, he lashed out.
Saint Francis loving all creatures and knowing the ways of wolves would have known this and took his own life into his hands to offer the wolf exactly what he needed. In turn, Francis also offered the residents what they needed.
Too often we see those that are different than us and chose to judge them. We can’t pretend to know what’s going on in their life. We judge and we attack and we shun those that we perceive to be attacking our way of life. It is easy to do, the default state of humanity is to attack that which we don’t understand. Francis teaches us here we can go above all that.
If we stop and take a moment to reflect on our own wolves in our lives, what do they yearn for? What can we do to coexist with them? Walking up to an aggressive wolf has to be scary, but, Francis knew this was the only way to find peace for the people of Gubbio.
We need to follow the example of Francis in this story. We need to do something that is really scary, take the time to see what others need from us and offer it to them. This will turn our wolves into companions in our lives. This will bring our wolves, and by extension ourselves a lasting peace.
Here is a little AI Video I made for fun
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