Venerable Matt Talbot's Life Offers a Beacon of Hope

The following is from 26 February 2017 "Musings" at http://www.intercommagazine.ie/newsletter-resources-february2017/.
 

All of us, ordinary and flawed, have at heart a seemingly longing for fulfillment.

On this Day of Prayer for Temperance, we consider Matt Talbot, who had only seven people at his funeral in 1925, but whom hundreds of thousands came to see as a beacon of hope that reflects the struggles that addiction can impose on someone’s life. He relied on a higher power that affirmed and accepted him, without preconditions. He made an extraordinary journey from the darkness of excessive addiction to wholeness and the light of holiness.

Amidst the anxieties and personal anguishes of his own pained-filled days and nights he shows us the answer to one of the seven questions that Jesus asks in the Gospel today: Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? 

Matt Talbot could identify with the words of today’s Psalm: “In God is my safety and glory, trust him at all times, pour out your hearts before him." He imbibe the refreshing of waters of grace and renewed his life as an heroic witness of the power and presence of God at work within his life.