About St. Francis - and that wolf...

I spent some time searching out a graphic for the post below announcing St. Francis as the Saint of the Month for October. I found image after image of Francis with birds, rabbits, pups and kittens and as beautiful as these are, it seemed to me that they revealed only one particular aspect of Francis' life. After all, Franciscans don't run pet stores in honor of their founder!

That's why I chose the image of Francis with the wolf of Gubbio, a predator wolf which Francis is said to have tamed and befriended. Now there's a patron saint for me! There are "wolves" who stalk the paths of my mind and heart - and perhaps a wolf's shadow has occasionally darkened your own steps.

Now, there are some wolves that need to done away with - as we saw earlier in the post about the two wolves. But there are other wolves who only need to be tamed. I mean here the wolf of that desire, good in itself but gone feral for lack of attention, affection or from affliction. Such a wolf needs to be named by an honest heart and tamed by God's grace.

I'm reminded here of a prayer I posted at the beginning of September:

Lord Jesus,
take possession of my desires:
tame them, heal them,
shape them, mold them,
use them for your glory.

Take possession of my desires,
the rest of my day,
and my whole way of life.So, this month pray with me that St. Francis will help us name and, with God's grace, tame the wolf within and make of him our friend or, as Francis called him, Brother Wolf...