Venerable Matt Talbot
1856-1925
June 19
Matt can
be considered the patron saint of those struggling with alcoholism.
Matt was born in Dublin, where his
father worked on the docks and had a difficult time supporting his family.
After a few years of schooling, Matt obtained work as a messenger for some
liquor merchants; there he began to drink excessively. For 15 years—until he
was 30—Matt was a very active alcoholic.
One day he decided to take “the
pledge” for three months, make a general confession and begin to attend daily
Mass. There is evidence that Matt’s first seven years after taking the pledge
were especially difficult. Avoiding his former drinking places was very hard.
He began to pray as intensely as he used to drink. He also tried very hard to
pay back people from whom he had borrowed or stolen money while he was
drinking.
Most of his life Matt worked as a builder’s
laborer. He joined the Secular Franciscan Order and began a life of strict penance;
he abstained from meat nine months a year. Matt spent hours every night avidly
reading Scripture and the lives of the saints. He prayed the rosary
conscientiously. Though his job did not make him rich, Matt contributed generously
to the missions.
After 1923 his health failed and
Matt was forced to quit work. He died on his way to church on Trinity Sunday.
Fifty years later Pope Paul VI gave him the title “Venerable.”
QUOTE: On an otherwise blank page in one of Matt’s books, the following is written: “God console thee and make thee a saint. To arrive at the perfection of humility, four things are necessary: to despise the world, to despise no one, to despise self, to despise being despised by others.”
COMMENT: In
looking at the life of Matt Talbot, we may easily focus on the later years when
he had stopped drinking for some time and was leading a very penitential life.
Only alcoholic men and women who have stopped drinking can fully appreciate how
difficult the earliest years of sobriety were for Matt.
He had to take one day at a time. So
do the rest of us.
by McCloskey,
Patrick. Franciscan Saint of the Day. St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1981.
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