St. Francis, the Wolf and the City
The Story Of St. Francis And The Wolf
[Summarized from “The Little Flowers of St. Francis, trans. E.M.
Blaiklock and A.C.Keys]
The town of Gubbio was being afflicted by a ravenous
wolf that tore apart both beasts and men and which nobody could withstand; so
that the people of the city either went about heavily armed or stayed inside
the gate. As the wolf ate even those who were heavily armed, eventually they
all stayed inside the city gate. St Francis of Assisi was in their midst at the
time and decided to deliver them from the wolf. He went outside the gate and, when the wolf charged he withstood
in the name and authority of Jesus Christ and commanded it to be meek by making
the sign of the cross. To the astonishment of all but St. Francis, the wolf
stopped its charge, closed its mouth, bowed low and obeyed St. Francis. The
saint then informed the wolf that in the normal course of justice it should be
horribly hacked to pieces but that if it was prepared to attack neither man nor
beast and be fed by the people of the city that he would spare it. The wolf indicated his agreement by
appropriate and humble movements. That day St. Francis preached and a covenant
of peace was drawn up between the wolf and the people of the city, the wolf
pledging his agreement by raising his right paw at the appropriate moment. The city raised a tremendous cheer and
thanked both God and St. Francis for their deliverance from the ravenous wolf.
As for the wolf, it kept its part of the bargain and begged its food from house
to house, becoming a part of the city and a constant reminder of the mercy of
God and the blessedness of St. Francis. This went on as related for around two
years until old age claimed the wolf and it died.
The Moral Of The Story
The legend of St. Francis and the
Wolf at left is a metaphor for the saintly Christian response to urban
problems. The wolf can be any problem that presses the people into a fear-
based fight or flight response; a problem which the city consistently fails to
solve, and which tears them apart day and night without mercy. Whatever is
“tearing a community apart” – that is its Wolf.
The Wolf killed to satisfy its hunger, but it did so in a lawless
and uncontrolled way bringing judgment on itself and fear to the city.
Similarly the Wolf that afflicts a given urban community is generally the
lawless meeting of an out of control need.
St. Francis represents the Christian exercising God’s mandated
authority in the name of Jesus Christ and working with the cross in view. The
Wolf is made both lawful and peaceful through the exercise of spiritual
authority and its needs are met through creative problem solving.
St. Francis demonstrates personal mastery and an approach to the
Wolf that is entirely different from that of the townsfolk of Gubbio. Francis
neither fights nor flees. He has no fear and does not resort to a fight or
flight based solution. He faces and confronts the Wolf in order to peacefully
master it. Urban problems need to faced calmly without retreat from the
city on one hand or strong arm law and order approaches on the other.
Reactivity should not determine response. Rather faith in the gospel will guide
the response. Faith-based mastery is the desire personal stance rather than
fear-based fight- or-flight.
St. Francis demonstrates that even the worst and most lethal of
problems have an imaginative, peaceful and truly beautiful solution.
He does not see the Wolf as a dramatic problem needing a drastic solution or as
a big problem requiring a massive and expensive solution. For St. Francis
the Wolf is a moral problem requiring a gospel solution.
There is no relationship between the size of the problem and the
size of the solution or the nastiness of the problem and the severity required
in its solution. Big problems sometimes have easy but unseen solutions such as
the terrible plague of scurvy that was stopped by eating fresh fruit or deaths
in operating theatres that declined when Lister discovered germs and told
doctors to wash their hands.
Similarly quite deadly problems can sometimes have beautiful
and almost quaint solutions. An urban squatter community in a particular
Two-Thirds world city was being torn apart by unusual levels of community
violence; so a Christian worker went in and did an ethnographic study of the
possible causes. It emerged that the women, who had moved to the city, were
without gardens and were bored and without the things that formerly gave
meaning to their existence. To fill the void some of them had resorted to
playing a rather lethal game of "my husband is tougher than your
husband" that had got out of control. When the women were introduced to
crafts that could earn them some money and give them self-esteem and
meaning, the violence subsided and their normal peaceful pattern of life
resumed. This is just one example of how ugly, brutal , apparently complex and
in this case lethal problems can have simple, beautiful and spiritual
solutions.
I believe that peace-making should be solution-focused rather than
problem-focused otherwise we can get bogged down in "the paralysis of
analysis". St. Francis goes out to confront the Wolf convinced that God
and the gospel will give him an answer. St. Francis did not go out there to
psycho-analyze the Wolf or analyze its pattern of killing or assess whether it
had a vitamin deficiency or which species of wolf it was. He went out there to
"solve the Wolf problem for once and for all". He sought peace not
information. While data collection and ethnography can be immensely useful (as
in the squatter settlement story above) it must always be gathered in the
context pf actually making peace and solving urban problems. We need to proceed
to the solution as quickly as possible and St. Francis does just that.
Christian urban
peace-making also addresses the needs of both parties. In the story at
left there is a meeting of mutual needs in a climate of mercy. The wolf
if he is to change needs food. Indeed we are to feed our enemies! "If your enemy is hungry give him
something to eat". The city if it is to be merciful needs a guarantee of
peace. The two needs are met by having the penitent wolf fed by the city,
so that its formerly out of control needs are met in peaceful and lawful
ways
Just covenants are central to peace-making and one is forged here
between the Wolf and the town of Gubbio. Formal peace-making ceremonies
such as that described in the full version of the story in Blaiklock's book
bring a sense of closure to the process and enable a sense of confidence and
normalcy to be achieved. Such covenants should be clear, fair and
well-celebrated.
Finally the story tells us that once a problem is tamed it can even
be a friend and more than that it can give glory to God.
The St. Francis and The Wolf parable
leads us to consider actively engaging in Christian peace-making in the urban
environment. If we seek to love others in the name of Christ and seek a just
peace the answer to the problem will be given to us by God. The very act of
seeking to be a peace-maker is creative. Therefore we seek to find peaceful,
just, Christian, creative, mastery based and solution-focused answers to the
problems that tear cities apart.