Venerable Matt Talbot Resource Center

Publishing history of books about Matt Talbot

2012-01-31T18:20:00.006-05:00

For a brief note on some of the publishing history of 22 books about Matt Talbot, click:

http://openlibrary.org/subjects/person:matt_talbot_%281856-1925%29#sort=edition_count

For more detailed information about most books that focus on or mention Matt Talbot, go to Amazon, for example, at

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_sq_all/180-8492658-3173445?_encoding=UTF8&keywords=%3A%20matt%20talbot&index=blended&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_r=1XGSSZ2QJRBRF2P6QAZH&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_i=0819847666#/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%3A+matt+talbot+books&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%3A+matt+talbot+book

Book cover image of Matt Talbot

2012-01-31T17:47:00.003-05:00

The illustrator for this 1992 book cover was Bob Bliss.

A ceramic image of Venerable Matt Talbot

2012-01-30T15:54:00.001-05:00

[This hand-made 11" ceramic creation of Venerable Matt Talbot is an original design by Fr. Maur van Doorslaer, O.S.B., that helps support the St. Andrew’s Abbey in California. It is available at http://www.olacathedralgifts.com/venerablematttalbot.aspx]

Website description of image:

“Venerable Matt Talbot [1856-1925] was born the 2nd of 12 children into a poor family in Dublin. He began drinking at 12 and was an alcoholic by age 13. Matt had a conversion experience on his knees at 28. He made a pledge of sobriety, which he kept until his death 41 years later. He worked in a lumberyard on the docks of Dublin, as did his father and grandfather. He was always poor and yet always generous to those in need. He lived a life of fasting, prayer and service imitating the Irish monks of the 6th Century. He is shown with symbols of his devotion to the Eucharist, to Mary and to the Word of God and with the chains of his addiction. He is considered a modern patron of alcoholics. He died on June 7, 1925.”

Ebook on the Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics (and Others)

2012-01-16T17:36:00.002-05:00

Paul at Sober Catholic ( http://www.sobercatholic.com/author/paulcoholic/) and Moderator of the Matt Talbot way of Recovery Yahoo Support Group (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MattTalbotWayofRecovery/) has recently published a devotional Ebook entitled, “The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics.”

It is available online for a $2.99 download through Smashwords.com at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/115490. Available on this order page is a free review sample of the contents and two book reviews.

Reciting the story of Matt Talbot

2012-01-01T17:10:00.003-05:00

In this 8 minutes 2011 video by Milk and Cookie Stories, a non-profit arts collective based in Dublin, Ireland, Una Shaw tells a story about Matt Talbot. Information about Milk and Cookie Stories can be found at http://www.milkandcookiestories.com/about/ and this video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eIfwnltjPo or below.

► 7:34► 7:34

The Serenity Prayer

2011-12-31T19:31:00.004-05:00

[As we conclude 2011 and begin 2012, we might pray the “long-form” of the “Serenity Prayer,” not only daily but frequently throughout each day as millions do. (An internet search on "Serenity Prayer Interpretation" will provide a wealth of information.)]

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can, and

Wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life and

Supremely happy with Him forever in the next."
Amen.

Attributed to Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr

New “Matt Talbot Way of Recovery Support Network” Online

2011-12-14T18:03:00.006-05:00

According to Paul at Sober Catholic ( http://www.sobercatholic.com/2011/12/12/matt-talbot-way-of-recovery/), a new Matt Talbot Way of Recovery Yahoo Group Online has now been established. Directions for joining are available at his link. The following description about this group is available at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MattTalbotWayofRecovery/.

“Description

Catholic? Are you suffering from an addiction, or trying to maintain your recovery? Then you've come to the right place! Welcome to the Matt Talbot Way of Recovery, a Yahoo Group where you can find other Catholics who are alcoholics or addicts. Our purpose is to transfer our love for our addictive substance or behavior onto Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The only requirement for membership is a desire to grow in the Catholic Faith and to stay sober, clean and chaste! Share with other members in your emails or direct postings here your struggles with sobriety, chastity, drugs and other addictions. Whether it is something directly related to your addiction and struggle to stay free, or maybe a life problem that in the past was your excuse to practice your addiction, email the Group or post here your thoughts, feelings and concerns.

In the process we will also learn about Venerable Matt Talbot, an Irishman who gave up drinking and who by all accounts basically lived the Twelve Steps, even though they had not been even conceived and written down yet. He lived a sober life, without a Twelve Step Movement to support him, by living out the Catholic sacraments.

We are NOT affiliated with ANY recovery movement. Doesn't matter what other recovery program you've used (or still use, or even if you've ever used one), all Catholics faithful to the Church or who desire to be faithful but are finding it difficult are welcome. No criticism of other member's recovery programs (or lack of) will be permitted. Charitable, sensitive opinions offered are acceptable. Bring your experience in recovery to the forums and in messages, but be tolerant of different approaches. As long as they work, its cool.

This place is NOT a substitute for therapy or medical help. All advice and suggestions are based on one's personal experience, and may not be suitable for all. If you have mental or medical complications due to your addiction, please see qualified personnel.”

Disclaimer: The placing of information on our Venerable Matt Talbot Resource Center site from external linked sources does not necessarily imply agreement with that information or content.

Brief introductory video about Venerable Matt Talbot

2011-12-04T16:17:00.001-05:00

This 1:27 minute video about the "man who overcame alcohol to become a devout Catholic” was posted by Real Catholic TV on June 23, 2011 at Saint of the Day : Venerable Matt Talbot 06-18 - YouTube

A Programme about the Life of Matt Talbot on 1st December, 2011 on TG4

2011-11-30T15:17:00.001-05:00

“A programme about the life of Matt Talbot will be broadcast on Thursday 1st December at 10.00pm on TG4 as part of the Scéalta Átha Cliath series. (http://www.dublindiocese.ie/content/venerable-matt-talbot)

Scéalta Átha Cliath chronicles Dublin’s rich and diverse history in an eight-part profile and celebration of some of the capital city’s most famous personages or venues. From Molly Malone and Bang Bang to Matt Talbot and Orson Welles’ teenage stage début as well as the strange goings on at the Hellfire Club, this really is Dublin’s history uncovered.” (http://www.galwayfilmcentre.ie/2011/09/tg4-brings-it-all-back-home-this-autumn/)

Photographs related to Matt Talbot's life

2011-11-30T15:00:00.005-05:00

Pilgrimage to the Tomb of Matt Talbot

“On Saturday 27th November, as the Matt Talbot Novena concludes, some parishioners from St.

Senan's Parish, Shannon, Co. Clare made a pilgrimage of Matt Talbot in Sean McDermott Street, Dublin.

Fr. Brian Lawless, the vice postulator for the cause of Venerable Matt Talbot, celebrated Mass for the pilgrims at the tomb. He also spoke about the life of Matt and shared the relics with those who had come on pilgrimage...Our thanks to Pat Grue for the photographs.”

[Triple-click each photograph to enlarge]

Source: http://www.shannonparish.ie/2011/11/pilgrimage-to-the-tomb-of-matt-talbot

Matt Talbot and the History of A.A. in Dublin

2011-11-30T14:41:00.003-05:00

Alcoholics Anonymous in Dublin celebrates its 65th anniversary this month.

While Matt Talbot died ten years before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio, USA, in 1935 and 21 years before the first AA meeting was held in Dublin on November 18, 1946, Matt's journey of continuous sobriety was based on the resources that were available in Dublin during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Certainly not to detract from his religious practices and individual approach to recovery (see http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/search/label/%22Matt%20Talbot%20way%22), former Vice-Postulator of the Cause of Matt Talbot, Fr. Morgan Costello, has noted in his publication,"Matt Talbot: Hope for Addicts" (1987; 2001), that elements of A.A.’s twelve-steps can be identified in Matt’s recovery.

Three articles related to the history of Alcoholics Anonymous in Dublin can be found at:

http://www.barefootsworld.net/aaireland.html

http://silkworth.net/aagrowth/ireland_Dublin.html

http://www.alcoholicsanonymous.ie/page4.html

St. Francis of Assisi: Another Patron Saint of Alcoholics?

2011-11-21T18:24:00.007-05:00

[St. Francis of Assisi is perhaps most typically thought of as the patron saint of animals, ecology, and peace. But according to the recovering alcoholic quoted in the article below by Fr. Joe, we might add "patron of alcoholics," not because St. Francis was an alcoholic but because of the peace prayer attributed to him (see "Note" below). This prayer is included in the chapter about the 11th step of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in the book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (page 99). According to the editor of this book, which was written by Bill Wilson, co-founder of A.A., Tom Powers is said to have commented that Bill W. considered St. Francis as the patron saint of Alcoholics Anonymous (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/6878)

While Venerable Matt Talbot may not have been aware of this prayer, St. Francis of Assisi was an important model for Matt as he joined theThird Order of St. Francis, known today as the Franciscan Secular Order, in 1890, six years into recovery.]

"St. Francis: Patron of Drunks"

Fr. Joe Tonos

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

http://www.southernfriedcatholicism.com/2011/10/st-francis-patron-of-drunks.html

A while back, a woman came to me and said she wasn't Catholic but she had a devotion to St. Francis. Thinking that she, like many others, knew of St. Francis as the "patron saint of yard ornaments, "I was waiting to hear what she had to say. She then surprised me and said, "He's the patron saint of drunks!" I had not heard that before.

She then explained that in the twelve step program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), St. Francis' "Peace Prayer" is offered as a prayer to those who are recovering. His prayer is used in the context of "self-searching" on the way to being a better person. His prayer is in the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" book of AA. The woman was a recovering alcoholic.

Here's an excerpt from the book:

First let’s look at a really good prayer. We won’t have far to seek; the great men and women of all religions have left us a wonderful supply. Here let us consider one that is a classic.

Its author was a man who for several hundred years now as been rated as a saint. We won’t be biased or scared off by that fact, because although he was not an alcoholic he id, like us, go through the emotional wringer. And as he came out the other side of that painful experience, this prayer was his expression of what he could then see, feel, and wish to become:

“Lord, make me a channel of thy peace—that where there is hatred, I may bring love—that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness—that where there is discord, I may bring harmony—that where there is error, I may bring truth—that where there is doubt, I may bring faith—that where there is despair, I may bring hope—that where there are shadows, I may bring light—that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted—to understand, than to be understood—to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen.”

As beginners in meditation, we might now reread this prayer several times very slowly, savoring every word and trying to take in the deep meaning of each phrase and idea.

Click here for the direct reference.

The woman concluded her praise of the saint with this, and I paraphrase, "St. Francis was an irascible, ill-tempered man when he could be and he once wrote that, 'When I am at my worst, when I am at odds with everyone and everything, it is then I pause and give God thanks because he has shown me what I would be without his grace.' She then peaceably with a smile said, "He understands us alcoholics."

In response to this posted article, one person stated that "ÄA relies a lot on the St. Francis prayer to remove the alcoholic from his selfish, self-centered ways. Living the AA program is to live a life of service, a life devoted to helping all children of God."

Note: Two sources that dispute that St. Francis was the author of the Peace Prayer can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Saint_Francis and http://www.franciscan-archive.org/patriarcha/peace.html.

Interceding for those who are addicted

2011-11-01T18:02:00.007-04:00

by the Christian Brothers of the Midwest (USA)

“It has been said that all addiction is search for God, though addicts unfortunately search in the wrong places - whether in alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, pornography, or work, or in another person, through codependency, sex, or love. In order to recover from addiction, addicts must learn to search elsewhere for their Higher Power.

Many recovering alcoholics, however, have difficulties with prayer and traditional notions of God. For some, childhood experiences of religious communities and leaders have left them feeling alienated from organized religion. At the same time, they are learning Twelve-Step programs that in

order to ground themselves and find the spiritual center from which their recovery can grow, they need to cultivate their spirituality. Others, who may have strong religious beliefs, presently often feel alienated from God. Feeling guilt about the harm they caused themselves and others during

their active addiction, newly recovering addicts can all too easily shy away from contact with their Higher Power at a time when it is crucial to reopen those channels of communication. Let us pray today for all those fighting a demon in their lives...”

Source: Please go to Interced For Addicted or

http://www.cbmidwest.org/prayers/interced_for_addicted.pdf for the entire six page article, which includes a very brief biography and prayer to Venerable Matt Talbot.

Note: For other special intentions on this website, go to http://www.cbmidwest.org/?page_id=728

This Drug Addict is a Martyred Saint

2011-10-30T14:38:00.007-04:00

[Martyred St. Maximilian Kolbe is typically listed as the patron for drug addicts on multiple Catholic saint websites, not because he was an addict but because he was given a lethal injection of carbolic acid in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The Chinese martyred layman saint briefly described in this article was an opium addict. Our previous reference to this saint may be found at September - Venerable Matt Talbot Resource Center]

This Addict is a Saint

by Jim Manney

The Blog of Ignatian Spirituality

September 22, 2011

http://ignatianspirituality.com/10830/this-addict-is-a-saint/

A friend of mine recently sent me a unusual holy card. It honors St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, a Chinese layman who was murdered in 1900, along with dozens of other Catholics in his village, in the vicious persecution of Christians during the Boxer rebellion. That’s not the unusual thing. The Church has canonized many martyrs, including many Chinese martyrs. What’s unusual about St. Mark is that he was an opium addict who was barred from receiving the sacraments for the last 30 years of his life

Mark couldn’t receive communion because his addiction was regarded as gravely sinful and scandalous. He prayed for deliverance from his addiction, but deliverance never came. Nevertheless he remained a believing Catholic. At his trial he was given a chance to renounce his faith, but he refused. It is said that he sang the litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary as he was led to his execution.

Saints are exemplary people. The Church creates them so we can learn from them. So what can we learn from St. Mark Ji Tianxiang?

For starters, he shows that anybody can become a saint—even a man who was kicked out of the church for giving public scandal. By canonizing him, the Church also signals a different attitude toward addiction than the one St. Mark’s pastors had a century ago. Drug abuse is sinful, but addiction is also a disease of the mind and body. Addicts today are not excluded from the sacraments because they are addicts.

I also marvel at St. Mark’s confidence in the mercy of God. He probably shared the village’s opinion of him—that he was serious sinner who was behaving terribly. He must have felt despair in his futile struggles and perhaps some bitterness too. But he persevered in his faith. I suspect that in his brokenness he met the suffering Christ. In the end, he went to his death confidently, trusting that love would receive him. May we all imitate St. Mark.

Note: Matt Talbot is two miracles away from being officially declared a patron of alcoholics (and perhaps even a patron for nicotine addicts).

Addiction-A Description of the Human Condition?

2011-10-28T19:20:00.009-04:00

[Perhaps our perception of addiction (to only a substance or process) will be expanded by contemplating the content of this sermon.]

A Sermon on My Alcohol Addiction, the Tyranny of the Will, and Romans 7

by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber

Sojourner Magazine Blog

07-18-2011

http://blog.sojo.net/2011/07/18/a-sermon-on-my-alcohol-addiction-the-tyranny-of-the-will-and-romans-7/

Even I can’t help admitting that there is a bunch of stuff in the Bible that’s hard to relate to. A lot has changed in the last 2,000 to 4,000 years, and I have no form of reference for shepherds and agrarian life, and I don’t know what it’s like to have a king or a Caesar, and I don’t know a single fisherman, much less a centurion, and I guess I can’t speak for all of you but personally I’ve never felt I might need to sacrifice a goat for my sins. That’s the thing about our sacred text being so dang old — it can sometimes be difficult to relate to. Things have changed a bit over the millennia.

But one thing has not changed even a little bit is the human condition. Parts of the Bible can feel hard to relate to until you get to a thing like this reading from Romans 7, in which Paul says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

Finally. Something I can relate to. This I know about. I too do not understand my own actions. I too can’t manage to consistently do what I know is right. Paul’s simple description of the human condition is perhaps a most elegantly put definition of what we now call addiction.

It’s no secret that I am a recovering alcoholic. By the grace of God I have been clean and sober for more than 19 years. But, boy, do I remember that feeling of powerlessness that comes from not being able to control your drinking. I’d wake up each morning and have a little talk with myself: “OK Nadia, get it together. Today is going to be different. You just need a little will power.” Then, inevitably, later that day I’d say, “Well, just one drink would be OK,” or, “I’ll only drink wine and not vodka,” or, “I’ll drink a glass of water between drinks so that I won’t get drunk.” And sometimes it worked, but mostly it didn’t. In the end, my will was just never “strong enough” Like Paul, I did the thing I hated. But that’s addiction for you. It’s ugly. Yet on some level I feel like we recovering alcoholics and drug addicts have it easy. I mean, our addictions are so obvious. The emotional, spiritual, and physical wreckage caused by alcoholism and drug addiction has a certain conspicuousness to it.

But the truth is, we are not actually special. I mean, our whole culture is addicted. It’s not just drunks who wake up in the morning and say, “Today, it’s gonna be different.” Perhaps some of you have done some “self-talk” recently. Perhaps some of you have tried to garner up just a little more will power. “Today, I won’t eat compulsively,” or, “I’ll not yell at my kids,” or, “I’ll not spend money I don’t have on things I don’t need.” Today, unlike yesterday, I won’t consume pornography or flirt with my married co-worker or look up my ex-boyfriend on Facebook. Today, I will finally stand up for myself. Today, I will not play video games. Today, I will really look for a job. Today, I will not lie to myself. Today, I will start meditating and become a vegan and start training for a marathon and go back to college and go to the container store so I can organize my closet and be in control.

But we’re not. We’re not in control. That would be the point. We’re addicted to poison, and people, and praise, and possessions, and power. And sometimes I think the church and society fuel a very particular addiction to proving our worthiness.

We live in a worthiness driven culture. The pressure to be successful, hide your weaknesses, get ahead, make your own way in the world … to pull yourself up by your boot straps, win at all costs, and be as impressive as possible to the most people as possible is what drives our entire cultural and economic system. So naturally we think that we should be able to solve our problems through will power and a protestant work ethic. The human will, whether it be a strong will which thinks it can take care of its own problems, or a weak will which just dissolves in the face of addiction, is just about the worst place to look for salvation. The source of my problems simply cannot also be the solution to my problems. I need something or someone external to myself to save me from myself. There simply is no amount of self-talk that is going to save me. No amount of self-help, no amount of determination or gumption. There is God and God alone.

The 12 steps, which (Fr.) Richard Rohr calls America’s single yet very important contribution to human spirituality works precisely because it isn’t a self-help program at all. That’s the point. Isn’t it interesting that one of the most truly transformative things to come out of America — The 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous — is based not on proving your worthiness, but on admitting your failure?

The genius is that the people who started AA recognized that addiction isn’t a drinking problem or a gambling problem or a food problem. It’s not a problem of the will, see, it’s a problem of the soul. It’s a putting-something-in-the-center-of-our-lives-other-than-God problem. And, as such, it can only have a spiritual solution. It took us a while to figure this out, but St. Paul knew it all along. Because as long as we hold out thinking that just a little more will power will do the trick, we remain hopeless. As Paul says, I can will what’s right, but I cannot do it.

So who will save us from this body of death, as Paul calls it? Well, the world gives us but one solution: our will. And as the saying goes — when the only tool I have is a hammer, all my problems look like nails. And I just pound away at everything. But the gospel changes all of that. The gospel of Jesus Christ tells us to lay down our silly little hammers and let God do for us what only God can do for us. Jesus doesn’t say, “the solution to your problem is to just try harder.” And our brothers and sisters in 12-step fellowships can tell us that the freedom we gain from our addictions comes only from admitting that we are a mess and that our will is not going to save us. We must, instead, believe that God and only God can restore us, and we must turn our will over to the care of God.

To be sure, the burden of the too strong or too weak will is heavy. It’s exhausting. It’s futile. And so we must hear Jesus say, “Lay it down. Lay down your addictions and fixations and compulsions and all the ways you suffer from the additions, fixations, and compulsions of others. Lay them here at the foot of the cross. Lay them atop the blood- and tear-soaked dirt at the foot of the place where God allowed human will to take its inevitable course. Lay your weighty burden on the holy ground where human ambition was allowed to play itself out to it’s logical conclusion. Here is where you can be free from the bondage of the self.”

Jesus says for the weary and heavy-laden to come to him. You can stop believing in your sin management programs and futile exercises in will power because he is simply stronger than all of it. We can all take comfort that it is not our wills, but the will of the God who named and claimed us which has the strength and power to transform us. Us — the addicted, the proud, the lazy, the failures, the washed-out and those on top of their game. Lay down your burdens and he shall give you sweet rest. For your worthiness lies not in the strength of your will, but in the unyielding determination of God’s Divine Love, which is simply too fierce to leave you unchanged.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor living in Denver, Colorado.

Note: For those interested in additional reading related to addiction and sin, two books by J. Keith Miller might be of interest: Hunger for Healing (1991) and Sin: Overcoming the Ultimately Deadly Addiction (1987). In the former book Keith mentions a twelve-step group started around 1988 in Texas called “Sinners Anonymous.”

One man's journey in recovery

2011-10-28T17:16:00.003-04:00

From time to time we post articles, interviews, and books about an individual’s journey in recovering from alcoholism. One book, for example, is that after concluding he did not care for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, Philip Maynard studied the life and approach to recovery of Matt Talbot, which he personally followed and later wrote the “training manual,” To Slake a Thirst: The Matt Talbot Way to Sobriety (2000).

At the same time, it is important to note that although Matt Talbot began his recovery from alcoholism in 1884 (at age 28) and died ten years before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in the USA in 1935 and in Dublin in 1946, Fr. Morgan Costello, long-time former Vice-Postulator for the Cause of the Venerable Matt Talbot, has written that Matt’s approach to overcoming alcoholism did incorporate the twelve steps of AA along with Matt’s personal and Roman Catholic practices. [See Fr. Costelloe’s booklet, Matt Talbot: Hope for Addicts (2001 edition), Veritas Publications, Dublin or available through Matt Talbot Retreats at http://matttalbotretreats.org/2009/10/where-can-i-find-group-forms-and-other-usefull-information/]

Although he does not mention Matt Talbot per se, the subject of the interview with John Garcia, found at

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/alcoholism-drives-man-beyond-12-steps-and-into-the-church, describes his recovery journey as moving from a 12 steps approach to a Roman Catholic based approach. In reading this interview it is essential to also read the many comments that articulate agreement and disagreement with Mr. Garcia’s views, especially regarding AA.

Matt Talbot Novena, October 2011

2011-10-04T16:33:00.006-04:00

AN INVITATION

"This year’s Novena begins on Tuesday 4th October at 7pm in SS John & Paul Church and continues for the Tuesdays of October and November. Each week, we pray for all suffering or sharing in the life of addictions. Petitions are available at the Shrine or by completing the form at the bottom of the page" at http://www.shannonparish.ie/2011/09/matt-talbot-novena-2011/

Additional information can be found at http://www.clarechampion.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3748:novena-to-offer-spiritual-response-to-addiction&catid=59:shannon&Itemid=56t

Starting Over

2011-09-24T17:23:00.005-04:00

In listening to a person recently share her very difficult life story which included drugs and alcohol, she mentioned that before recovery she “never knew she had a choice” as to how to live. But now in recovery she realized that her life didn’t have to remain the same as it had been; that with the help of God and others, she has a choice each day as to how to live her life, a life focused on doing the will of God rather than her own will which had led to repeated disasters.

Homily for September 25, 2011: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

by Deacon Greg Kandra
September 24, 2011

Source: http://www.patheos.com/community/deaconsbench/2011/09/24/homily-for-september-25-2011-26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time/

Here at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, it’s customary to remember and honor the martyrs of different cultures. This weekend, we’ll have a special mass commemorating a Filipino martyr, Lorenzo Ruiz. We also have special masses for the Korean Martyrs and the Chinese martyrs.

Last week, I learned something remarkable about one of the martyrs whose feast we celebrated this summer: St. Mark Ji Tianxiang. He was a Chinese layman who was executed in 1900, along with dozens of other Catholics in his village during a bloody persecution of Christians. St. Mark was steadfast in his faith, and refused to renounce it – and for that, he gave his life.

That is extraordinary enough. But so are the circumstances under which he died.

St. Mark, you see, was an addict. An opium addict. In the 19^th century, the Church didn’t understand addiction as it does now – and his life was seen as gravely sinful and scandalous. As a result, for 30 years Mark Ji Tianxiang was denied communion. Yet his devotion never wavered. Witnesses say that he sang a litany to the Blessed Mother as he was led to his death.

It is tempting for us to think of saints as superhuman – and certainly, many of them, like St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, show phenomenal courage and commitment to the faith. But his story also reminds us: whether or not a saint is superhuman, he or she is also human.

Jesus understood that, and it’s one of the points in this Sunday’s gospel. He told the story of two sons – one obedient, one disobedient – and made clear that sometimes the person who appears to be the holiest, or who seems to say the right thing, isn’t necessarily the one doing God’s will.

“Tax collectors and prostitutes,” he said to the chief priests, “are entering the kingdom of God before you.”

This was a shocking thought at the time – but one that should be familiar to all of us today. The story of our church, after all, is a story of transformation, of change.

It is a story of salvation and redemption – of changing course, and beginning again.

It’s the story of people starting over.

It’s been said that the Church isn’t a museum for stained glass saints – but a hospital for sinners.

Well, we are all patients in that particular hospital. Some of us are in intensive care. But a lot of remarkable people have been here before us.

There was Peter the liar, and Thomas the doubter, and Paul the persecutor and the thief called Dismas, who was saved in the final moments of his life by Jesus on the cross. There was Mary of Egypt, a prostitute. There was Augustine the pagan, who had a mistress and a child. There was Dorothy Day, who had an abortion, and Matt Talbot, who was an alcoholic.

There was St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, addicted to opium.

And there’s you and me. No matter how we’ve sinned, or what choices we’ve made, God holds out this beautiful possibility: no matter what we have done, we can still be saints. Like the son in the parable, we can change our minds – and change direction. We can make that journey.

And we have good company for the trip. Not only the communion of saints, the great “cloud of witnesses” who are praying for us and with us, but also Jesus Christ. He knows our struggles. Because he took them on as his own.

“He emptied himself,” Paul wrote, “taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

He became one of us. And then he took it as far as his Father asked him, all the way to the cross. As Paul wrote elsewhere: he was a man like us in all things but sin. He “humbled himself” to be one of us – living, struggling, hungering, and dreaming among fishermen and tax collectors, prostitutes and thieves.

And so he walks with us still, as we fumble our way through life — falling, then getting up, with our knees scraped and our hearts broken, as we try in our own imperfect and clumsy way to become what God wants us to be: saints.

It’s worth remembering: in the parable that we heard, the son who ultimately does the father’s will – and, presumably, is finally saved – isn’t the son who said “Yes.” It’s the one who at first said “No.”

He changed his mind – and changed his heart.

And that made all the difference.

God gives us that chance again and again, the chance to take another road. He gave it to Paul and Augustine and Dorothy Day and Mark Ji Tianxang. And he gives it to us.

Many of the greatest saints were like us.

And we have it within us to be like them.

No matter how many times we may have said “No” to the will of God, by His grace we still have a chance to say “Yes.”

Miracles do happen

2011-09-17T18:14:00.003-04:00

by Triona Doherty

Reality, April 2011

Source: http://79.140.136.93/_fileupload/Apr11Rp9.pdf

In this informative article Doherty discusses what constitutes a miracle, why they are required for canonization, the making of saints, miraculous happenings, and the miracle of life.
Within the heading, “Irish Miracles,” Doherty quotes Fr. Brian Lawless, Vice-Postulator for the Cause of Matt Talbot, that “at the moment there are two or three possible miracles of a physical nature attributed to Matt Talbot but they are in the very early stages. On the other hand, there are many people who have attributed their recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction to Matt Talbot. If these ‘moral miracles were accepted by the church, I’m sure he would have been canonised years ago,’ Fr.
Lawless says.” [page 4 of this 5 page PDF link above]

Nothing else is mentioned in this article about these “early stage” possible miracles.

Letting go of the past

2011-09-17T17:10:00.005-04:00

Venerable Matt Talbot could certainly be added to this list of those who reformed their lives (as well as recovering alcoholics/addicts today).

Source: http://fatherdoyle.com/2011/09/02/thoughts-for-september-2-from-fr-willie-doyle-2/#comment-863

“You must absolutely drive away all despondency or useless pining or regrets about the past. It does not please God and it only injures your spiritual life.”

Fr. Doyle

“COMMENT: Worrying about the past, and about our sins that we have already confessed, is one symptom of suffering from scruples. Fr Doyle had great concern for the scrupulous, so much so that he wrote a pamphlet on the “treatment” of scruples. The text can be found on the page on this site dedicated to his writings.

It is consoling to think of the many saints who reformed their lives and went on to great holiness: St Mary Magdalen who was caught in adultery; St Peter who denied Christ three times; St Paul who persecuted the Church; St Augustine who was addicted to lust; St Camillus who was an ill-tempered gambling addict and St Teresa of Avila who loved to gossip and waste time. Even a Satanic priest can convert, repent of his past life and reach heroic holiness, as the example of Blessed Bartolo Longo shows us. Dozens more can be added to the list. They did not allow their past to hold them back, but trusted in God’s infinite mercy.”

Note: Two references to Matt Talbot can be found on this site at:

http://fatherdoyle.com/?s=%22matt+talbot%22

Matt Talbot, Spiritual Surrender, and Addiction

2011-09-08T20:41:00.003-04:00

Professor Dyslin has written an interesting journal article on spiritual surrender in the treatment of addictions available at:

Dyslin, Christopher W. "Power of Powerlessness: The Role of Spiritual Surrender and Interpersonal Confession in the Treatment of Addictions, The". Journal of Psychology and Christianity, Spring 2008. Also available at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7623/is_200804/ai_n32276045/

Whereas this entire article is well worth reading, Professor Dyslin has a section beginning on page 4 titled, “Conceptions of Spiritual Surrender in the Catholic Tradition of the Care of Souls,” that might be of particular interest. In it he reviews..."several historical approaches to spiritual surrender from the Catholic tradition that appear applicable to addictions treatment. The most ancient of these approaches to surrender is that of the fourth century bishop of Hippo and arguably an early Christian psychologist, St. Augustine. His ideas may have provided the psychological basis for later approaches to surrender that I will review in the writings of the 16th century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross, the 18th century French Jesuit, Jean Pierre de Caussade, and the early 20th century Irish mystic, Matt Talbot.”

The excerpt from page 6 focuses on Matt Talbot:

“The ascetic approach to recovery from addiction attributed to the early 20th century Irish mystic, the venerable Matt Talbot (d. 1925), focuses on giving up the addiction "for the love of Jesus" (Maynard, 2000). This approach preceded modern 12-step approaches, and also possesses an underlying focus on spiritual surrender. Although in his commentary on TaIbot’s approach to the problem of addiction, Maynard (2000) reacts to the traditional twelve-step focus on powerlessness, and proposes that it is the recognition of the addict's strong will and an alternate motivation for that will that ultimately leads to sobriety, there does appear to be a necessary element of surrender to God involved in the process. In the "Matt Talbot Way," the love of liquor is given back to God as a gift because there is a greater love for Jesus. The seven steps of this way are predominantly centered on the development of a disciplined prayer life including: a morning offering, Christ-centered prayer (e.g., "breath prayers" using a traditional brief prayer such as the "Jesus Prayer" or another brief, often repeated, prayer), dedication of prayers of the day, spiritual reading, other short prayers during the day (e.g., grace at meals, the Angelus, prayer to the crucified Christ), evening prayer, and Christian living (an intention toward and infusion of the theological and cardinal virtues of faith, hope, charity, wisdom, temperance, fortitude, and justice). It is difficult to imagine how this approach could be lived out without a foundation of spiritual surrender."

Note: Information regarding Maynard’s book can be found at the “Matt Talbot way” link below. We appreciate this article being available online.

Trusting God with an Addicted Child

2011-09-07T09:51:00.010-04:00

Elizabeth Talbot prayed continuously for her son, Venerable Matt Talbot, (and other family members) that he (and they) be released from the bondage of alcohol. After 16 years of drinking and being excessively drunk, Matt finally informed his mother that he was going to “take the pledge” not to drink. She warned him not to do so unless he was serious about it. With the support of God, daily Mass, a spiritual director, Elizabeth’s prayers, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and other life changes, Matt was able to stay sober for the remaining four decades of his life.

Although having an addicted son (or daughter) today is a very different time, place, and circumstances than what Elizabeth Talbot experienced, perhaps this article will speak to some mothers.

Trusting God with Our Son and His Addiction

Hattie Heaton

February 16, 2011

Source: http://catholicexchange.com/2011/02/16/148285/

Everyone knows a handful of days can change who you think you are. Death removes someone you love from your life and changes the family dynamic. Marriages add new members, rearranging the family dynamic. And there are tragedies that can drop you to your knees in an instant, showing you that it can happen to you, too.

Days like these steal your innocence. They make you question what you thought you knew before. I know, because on July 25, 2010 my husband and I experienced the most difficult day of our lives.

Four days prior, I didn’t have a name for what was wrong with my son. My husband and I had been baffled for years at his lack of maturity, initiative, his mood swings and irresponsibility. But as I drove out of the long drive and left my son at an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center, I had the answer that boggled my mind and shook my family to the core, making me re-examine everything in my life.

But it was an answered prayer. Finally, honestly, I had summoned the courage to pray that God would show us what was wrong with my son. I think on some level, I always suspected, but fear and lack of faith always kept me from going down that scary road. Our family was about to embark upon a journey that no one wanted to travel. I was bombarded with swirling emotions after leaving my son behind. I prayed, “Here I am Lord, what now?”

As I got to the end of the rehab driveway there was a big arch extending from one side of the drive to the other. It was painted with big white letters that said, “Let Go and Let God.” I had often heard that phrase in relation to AA, but I had never really dug into the guts of what that meant. Our journey would begin by learning how.

Our family was about to learn so many new things. We would be challenged to change our entire view on how to protect our son. We were advised to allow him to face the natural consequences of his actions, no matter what the consequence was. We were all so paralyzed with fear in the beginning. Thankfully, good friends and family surrounded us with prayer, food and the support we needed. For many weeks I slogged through each day, came home, laid in the fetal position on the sofa and begged God for the help that I wanted.

This was not the place I had ever expected to be. I had not hoped for, planned, dreamed or even imagined this for any of my children. We had discussed the dangers of drugs and alcohol. I took my children to Mass every Sunday. They attended Catholic schools. How could this have happened under my very nose?

But it did, and it is my cross. Slowly my prayer began to be, “Help me to learn how to carry this cross…give me the strength; show me the way.”

What I know now is that addiction is a family disease. The effects of one person’s addiction have a direct impact on every member of the family. I see now that, slowly over time, we began compensating for the addict, fixing things for the addict, making excuses for the addict, tip toeing around the addict, until the whole family (whether cognizant of it or not), was changing what they would have typically done in order to facilitate or enable the addict to continue his habit.

Letting go seemed counterintuitive, at first. If he had done this under our constant watch, what would happen if we let him go? But if I continued doing what I HAD been doing, I knew I would continue to get the same result. I realized it was time for courage, time to ask for God’s will no matter what.

Still, after learning of our son’s addiction we struggled with fear for his life and the need to protect him from judgment. The disease of addiction still has many negative connotations associated with it. Often it is thought of as a character flaw; it is socially stigmatized. But after a couple of weeks of carrying our secret, it became a burden too heavy to carry and the decision to confide in close family and friends was a tremendous relief.

We began to attend family counseling at the rehab facility. Learning the facts about the disease of addiction helped us release the anger towards our son, and place it where it belonged, on the disease. Early on the choice to experiment was his. It was a bad choice, one that would lead him to a place where the disease of addiction would take over. As parents we also made a lot of bad choices. But now we choose to make better ones.

Addiction is the number one public health threat today in the United States. If addiction hasn’t affected your family, look around. It is everywhere. While in rehab, my son reconnected with someone from high school, college and work, and even someone from his grandfather’s small hometown 100 miles away.

Loaded with new information, we started learning to live within our humbling new reality and looking with new eyes. How many times have I walked past someone that I suspected had a problem with drugs and alcohol and not looked them in the eyes? How many times had I failed to realize that these people were someone’s child, or to see Jesus in them?

My son is experiencing what Mother Teresa called spiritual poverty. He is “one of the least of these.” I look into my beautiful boy’s eyes and see someone lost, but I also see a glimpse of hope. I have learned to look a little deeper from now on.

God in his mercy is working on this family, teaching us to trust more, teaching us to see more. He is teaching us to look for his will in everything we do, and giving us peace, and strength, and joy. This life- changing event has brought us so much closer to each other and to God, stripping away so many unimportant aspects of our lives and is replacing them with “peace that passes all understanding.”

Is my life perfect? No. Has my son stayed in recovery without relapse? No. But I have learned that peace is not the absence of chaos. It is having a calm heart in the midst of it.

My son is on a journey, a journey that God has planned for him and that will teach him new lessons every day. If I get in the way, I might prevent him from learning something important.

But I am learning too. I must let go. When I simply trust, things are better. The sign at the rehab facility was only one lesson of many more, and each one brings me closer to God so that I am less afraid. I can face this journey knowing that God is in control, giving me strength for the day and a light for the way.

Today, I am able to “Let go and Let God.” Thanks be to God.

Note: We recommend another article by Hattie Heaton at http://praying4henry.blogspot.com/search?q=matt+talbot

One source of help for parents is Al-Anon in Ireland at http://www.al-anon-ireland.org/index.htm and in the USA at http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/home

Matt Talbot, Patron of Labourers

2011-09-05T16:05:00.007-04:00

While there are many recognized saints who are listed with multiple and diverse patronages, like St. Monica and St. Joseph, there are some who are known principally for one or two patronages, such as St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe among addicts and prisoners. (While not a drug addict himself, St. Kolbe was killed by Nazis with an injection of carbolic acid in the extermination camp of Auschwitz in 1941.)

Although (yet to be canonized) Venerable Matt Talbot is widely regarded solely as patron for alcoholics, he certainly qualifies as being considered a patron for labourers (laborers/workers), as those in the USA celebrate Labor Day today. Matt did manual labor his entire life, beginning at the age of 12.

Matt Talbot and the Character of Christian Conversion

2011-08-28T20:33:00.001-04:00

While the excerpt below (pages 35-37) from a journal article may, at first glance, appear intimidating if we are unfamiliar with Thomistic theory, there may still be personal value in reading it for additional information about Matt Talbot’s life and conversion.

Please note that Matt Talbot is mentioned in other sections of this article. And there is certainly value in reading the whole article to put this excerpt into greater perspective.

INFUSED VIRTUE AND THE EFFECTS OF ACQUIRED
VICE: A TEST CASE FOR THE THOMISTIC THEORY
OF INFUSED CARDINAL VIRTUES

Michael S. Sherwin, O.P.

University of Fribourg

(Switzerland)

The Thomist 73 (2009):29-52

Source: http://www.thomist.org/journal/2009/jan%202009/2009%20Jan%20A%20Sherwin.htm, pages 35-37 or Cached

The example of this poor Irish laborer is of interest to us because of an event that occurred one Saturday afternoon in early 1884 outside a pub in a poor section of Dublin.⁽²¹⁾ Talbot, who had spent the week drinking, was awaiting the arrival of his coworkers. It was payday in Dublin, and although he hadn't worked he looked forward to receiving a few free drinks from his friends. As he slouched beside the door of the pub, Matt Talbot would not have been viewed as the embodiment of the classical ideal of virtue. Indeed, Aristotle would most certainly have classified Talbot among those who "from the hour of their birth . . . are marked off for subjection."⁽²²⁾ In other words, Aristotle would have classified Talbot among the natural slaves, who, like beasts of burden, are incapable of virtue because of the poverty of their natural gifts and of the environments in which they were raised. Aristotle held out little hope for one raised in bad habits from birth. As he states in the Ethics, "It makes no small difference whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference."⁽²³⁾ Talbot had certainly been raised in bad habits from his youth. The second of twelve children, all but one of whom drank to excess, Talbot in great part received his education running free in the streets of the poor neighborhoods by the docks of Dublin. His formal education consisted of two years at a school run by the Christian Brothers, during much of which he was absent doing chores at home. In spite of whatever positive influence he may have received from school and from the example of his devout mother, by the time he was fifteen, Talbot was an inveterate drunk who lived for alcohol. For the next thirteen years, until he was twenty-eight, his daily routine was to work hard all day, and to drink hard all night. He worked to drink. On payday he would give his entire earnings to the pub manager and drink freely for as long as his wages lasted.⁽²⁴⁾

But on that Saturday afternoon in 1884, he had no wages, because he had spent the week drinking. That fact and the events surrounding it--not the least of which was that none of his coworkers would buy him a drink--led Talbot to change his life radically. That very day he stopped drinking, never to drink again. Moreover, from a life dedicated to the love of alcohol, he turned to a life dedicated to the love of God: to prayer, sacrifice, and the service of the poor. A turning point occurred that Saturday afternoon, a metanoia, a transformation. Earlier events may have prepared the way, but that afternoon was nonetheless a recognizable turning point.

Matt Talbot's life is an example of Christian conversion and points to the incomplete character of both Aristotle's conception of virtue and of the Scotistic tradition's theory of the sufficiency of the theological virtues. Talbot would agree with Aristotle that the habits we develop from youth make a very great difference, but do they make all the difference? The Christian experience of conversion points instead to the fact that in the grace of conversion other virtues are given--virtues of which Aristotle was unaware and the existence of which the Scotists deny. Even though one may still struggle with the remaining effects of one's acquired vices, in the grace of conversion we have the infused capacity to live a life directed to a higher goal. We now have the capacity to judge rightly and do those actions that lead us to union with God in heaven. In short, we receive the infused cardinal virtues. The example of Matt Talbot is instructive because it sheds light on the complexity of the divided self: the experience of one who not only has faith, hope, and charity, but also has a new phronesis (a new capacity to reason practically) and a new dynamis (a new power) in his will and passions, even though he still feels drawn to his addiction. Talbot, for example, began to make judgments and to act in ways that radically reoriented his life toward God, judgments and actions he seemed incapable of making before his conversion. Nevertheless, he still retained, especially in the beginning, a strong desire (and inclination) to continue drinking and to return to his former way of life. Talbot's experience seems to embody Aquinas's affirmation that although sanctifying grace infuses cardinal virtues within the convert, the convert may still struggle with the residual effects of his acquired vices.⁽²⁵⁾ In what follows, I shall first sketch Aquinas's teaching on the infused cardinal virtues; I shall then propose some of the implications of this teaching for our understanding of moral development and of cases such as Matt Talbot's.

Note: We appreciate this article being available online.

Matt Talbot: Inspiration for Addicts

2011-08-27T22:34:00.002-04:00

In connection with a visit by Noeleen Murphy to “The Rosary Centre: The Rosary Apostolate in Ireland” where she shared her inspiration to write a song in dedication to Matt Talbot, the author of this two-page article provides a brief biography about Matt “who became the weight bearer and inspiration for those crippled not only by alcohol addiction but addictions of all kinds.”

To read this, click

.com/PDFs/2010/AprMay2011.pdf. Scroll down to pages 18-19.

St. Monica and Ven. Matt Talbot

2011-08-27T15:26:00.011-04:00

Some Catholic saints are associated with particular life situations. Although Venerable Matt Talbot is considered “the patron saint of alcoholics” by many Catholics and “patron saint” websites, he has not been recognized yet by the Roman Catholic Church as an official saint. The most common official saint mentioned is St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine (whose book, Confessions, is the basic source of information about his mother). Besides being the patron saint for alcoholics and alcoholism, she is listed commonly as a patron saint for wives, mothers, victims of verbal abuse, adultery, and difficult marriages, disappointing children, etc.

Today is the Roman Catholic Church Feast Day of St. Monica, although it was previously held on May 4 (and is still held on this date by some other churches).

In reading about St. Monica it is not always mentioned or clear as to why she is considered a patron saint of alcoholics. One exception, however, is suggestive from Butler’s Lives of the Saints, which is excerpted below:

Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume V: May.
The Lives of the Saints. 1866.

St. Monica

332-387 AD

...”THE CHURCH is doubly indebted, under God, to the saint of this day, namely, for the birth, and still more so for the conversion of the great St. Austin; who was more beholden to St. Monica for his spiritual life by grace, than for his corporal life by his birth and education. She was born in 332, in a pious family, and early instructed in the fear of God. She often professed her singular obligations to a virtuous, discreet, maid servant, whom her parents intrusted with the education of their children, and who instilled into them maxims of piety, restrained the least sallies of their passions, and by her prudence, words, and example, inspired them with an early sense and love of every duty. She was so strict in regard to her charge, that, besides making them observe great temperance in their meals, she would not allow them to drink even water at any other times, how great thirst soever they might pretend. She used to say: “You are now for drinking water, but when you come to be mistresses of the cellar, water will be despised, but the habit of drinking will stick by you.” Notwithstanding the prudent care of this tutoress, the young Monica contracted insensibly an inclination to wine: and when she was sent by her parents, who were strangers to it, to draw wine for the use of the family, in taking the liquor out with a cup, she would put her lips to it and sip a little. This she did at first, not out of any intemperate desire of liquor, but from mere youth and levity. However, by adding to this little every day a little more, she overcame the original reluctance she had to wine, and drank whole cups of it with pleasure, as it came in her way. This was a most dangerous intemperance, though it never proceeded to any considerable excess. (1) God watched over his servant to correct her of it, and made use of a servant maid as his instrument; who, having observed it in her young mistress by following her into the cellar, words arising one day between them, she reproached her with it, calling her a wine-bibber. This affected Monica in such a manner, that, entering seriously into herself, she acknowledged, condemned, and from that moment entirely corrected her fault. She after this received baptism, from which time she lived always in such a manner, that she was an odour of edification to all who knew her...”

...Note 1. It is a notorious mistake and misrepresentation, to call this fault the crime of drunkenness, though such a habit insensibly paves the way to the utmost excesses; and this danger of a saint ought to be a powerful warning to deter all persons, especially servants and young people, from a like custom of sipping, how insignificant and trifling soever the first steps towards it may appear. If Monica was awakened before she was brought to the brink of the precipice, this was the effect of a singular grace; and, where she repented, thousands perish, and regardless of every evil, present and future, become the murderers of their bodies, their reason, the fortunes of their family, and their immortal souls. This destroying evil arises from small beginnings neglected..”

Source: http://www.bartleby.com/210/5/041.html and http://books.google.com/books?id=56A9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=temperance++St+Monica&source=bl&ots=l9GtTOhQtk&sig=ZWekIvSFUF1Yws8dIZt2BounzXc&hl=en&ei=V5dSTpLcC-LosQKvsojYBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%20St%20Monica&f=false

Also note: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2007/08/st-monica-avoided-alcoholism-2/ among many other sources.

Notes about other saints who are periodically listed as patrons of alcoholics will appear in future posts.

Not above or below anybody

2011-08-20T15:13:00.004-04:00

31st Sunday 2008

Brendan Clifford

Addressing the people and his disciples Jesus said, ‘You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.’

Mt 23: 8-12.

I have two questions for you. The first is this: who are the people you feel are more important than you are? You may think of public figures like the Pope or the President, or celebrities you read about in the papers or see on television. You may think of people closer to home: neighbours or relations.

Each of us could make a list. Almost without noticing it, we judge that other people are more important than that we are. It may be because they are better off, or better educated, more talented, more attractive or more popular. If we meet these people we may try hard to make a good impression on them and to be in their good books. We may not like to admit it but most of us are a little like Hyacinth Bucket, the Lady of the House in the television comedy ‘Keeping Up Appearances.’

We are not inferior to anyone
Jesus tells us there is a wiser way to live. ‘You must call no one on earth your father,’ he says, ‘since you have only one Father and he is in heaven.’ He is not telling us that we should not respect our parents and call them ‘mother’ and ‘father.’ He is telling us not to consider ourselves less that any other human being; we are not inferior to anyone.

Matt Talbot understood this. One day when there was a lull in his work in the timber yard Matt was in his usual secluded place between the stacks of timber. The manager of the company, Mr. Martin was showing a visitor around. He heard some movement among the timber stacks and called out, ‘Come out, whoever is there, and don’t be afraid.’ Matt walked out and said, ‘With all respects to you, sir, I never yet met a man I was afraid of.’ On another occasion a fellow worker spoke about his ‘master,’ meaning Mr. Martin. Matt said, ‘He is only my boss: I have only one master - in heaven.’

The great Indian leader, Mahatma Ghandi was deeply committed to non-violence and said, ‘I shall not fear anyone on earth. I only fear God. I shall bear ill-will towards no one. I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.’

We are not superior to anyone.
Here is the second question: Who are the people you consider to be less important than you are? This is an embarrassing question; we find it hard to admit that we could make a list of these people, and that we keep adding names to the list. If we take part in the Mass every day, we can easily think that we are better than the neighbours who do not go at all. If we help some one who is poor or sick, we can imagine we are more important than that person. Suppose a stranger comes to my door and I think he is a beggar; my attitude to him is likely to change if I discover he is the county manager.

These words of Jesus are good news for the entire world. How different the world would be if everybody believed it and acted accordingly. They are good news especially for those who are poorest and least respected. Imagine people in shanty towns in Latin America or the Philippines meditating on them. The well off world tells them that no one of importance lives in a shanty town. But Jesus words assure them that they are inferior to no one; they need call no one on earth their father.

It is a life long task for each of us to become sufficiently mature and self-possessed and humble to live by these words. At the beginning of each Mass we call to mind our sins: we know at that moment we are not superior to other people. Before Communion we offer each other a sign of peace: we know then that the other people are not superior to us; they are our sisters and brothers.

Prayer.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for letting us know that we need call no one on earth our father because we have only one Father. We pray that we may not allow ourselves to be called rabbi or teacher, because we are all your sisters and brothers.

Source: http://www.goodnews.ie/lectio31stnovember2008.shtml

Miniature Matt Talbot Sculpture

2011-08-14T15:59:00.005-04:00

We do not typically post information about Matt Talbot items for purchase. We make an exception, however, for an exclusive miniature Matt Talbot sculpture pictured below. This sculpture has a bronze finish and will be approximately 10.5” tall and weighs 5 lbs. and is only available through Our House Ministry and The Calix Society (http://www.calixsociety.org/).

Please note that we have no connection with Our House Ministry,The Calix Society, or the sculpturer other than to simply bring this offer to your attention. Information is available in a brochure download from The Calix Society at

http://www.calixsociety.org/resources/talbot-statue and ordered at

http://www.calixsociety.org/store.

“Miniature Venerable Matt Talbot Sculpture”

Sculpture by Timothy Schmalz of Ontario, Canada

(http://www.sculpturebytps.com/Pages/CloseupPages/MattTalbot.html and

http://www.sculpturebytps.com/Pages/LSTOC.htm)

Monument to the Venerable Matt Talbot

2011-08-13T21:12:00.006-04:00

Sculpturer Timothy Schmalz of Ontario, Canada created this monument to Matt Talbot. As noted below, the original bronze 10 ft. sculpture is located at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.

Source: http://www.sculpturebytps.com/Pages/CloseupPages/MattTalbot.html#

10ft Monument cast in Bronze with “Ancient Green” Patina.

Matt Talbot Monument in Dublin

2011-08-13T20:14:00.006-04:00

These are just two of many online photographs of the Matt Talbot Monument, near Dublin’s Matt Talbot Bridge.The sculpture is by James Power, one of Ireland’s most respected sculptors.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomcosgrave/187963768/ by Tom Cosgrave

“Matt Talbot (May 2, 1856-7 June 1925) was an Irish ascetic who is revered by many Catholics for his life of self-sacrifice and mortification of the flesh.

Talbot was born the second eldest of twelve children to a poor family in the North Strand area of Dublin, Ireland. His battle with alcoholism from a young age became famous through the posthumous discoveries on his body. Having drunk excessively for 16 years, Talbot had successfully given it up and maintained sobriety for the following forty years of his life. He was known to his peers as a generous and, perhaps surprisingly given what was to follow, happy man who gave much of his wage to the poor as well as played an active part in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in the city. He was, also, an extremely devout Catholic and was reportedly on the way to his third mass on the day he died. This in itself would have gone unnoticed were it not for the marks and chains discovered all over his body when he died on a Dublin street in 1925.

In a life reminiscent of the Early Christian monks in Ireland, who believed that a life of sacrifice, prayer and devotion would bring them closer to God, chains were found all over Talbot's body. A heavy chain had been clamped securely around his waist with more chains around an arm and another the knee of the devout mass-goer. Some attributed the chains to his repentance for his sins, an interpretation which evokes images of Rodrigo Mendoz's penance in the Roland Joffé movie, The Mission. Talbot's story quickly filtered through to the large Irish émigré communities and within Ireland he rapidly became an icon for Ireland's large temperance movement, the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association.

As word of Matt Talbot spread, countless addiction clinics, youth hostels, statues and much more have been named after him throughout the world from Nebraska to Warsaw to Sydney. One of Dublin's main bridges today is also named after him. Pope John Paul II, as a young man, wrote a paper on him. In 1931, Archbishop Byrne of Dublin opened the sworn inquiry into the alleged claims to holiness of the former dock worker. The Apostolic Process, the official sworn inquiry at the Vatican, began in 1947. On October 3 1975 Pope Paul VI declared him to be Venerable Matt Talbot, which is seen as a step on the road to his canonisation, a process which needs evidence of a physical miracle in order to be successful. Matt Talbot was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, until 1972 when his remains were removed to Our Lady of Lourdes church on Seán McDermott Street, Dublin 1. He remains a legendary figure in the folklore of modern Dublin.”

Matt Talbot Monument

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31068574@N05/4780546840/in/photostream/ by Le Monte 1

Matt Talbot Monument Bronze Information Plaque

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31068574@N05/4779918645/ by Le Monde 1

Who was Matt Talbot?

2011-08-13T13:18:00.002-04:00

Michael Murphy

Source: http://www.matttalbotcounselling.ie/matttalbot.html

“He was born on 2nd May 1856 in humble circumstance in Dublin's inner city, the son of Charles and Elizabeth Talbot. In post-famine years Dublin and the rest of Ireland was in distressed state: an era of grinding poverty and appalling living conditions. Yet it was also a time when the Faith was strong and prayer and the practice of their religion were the channels of hope and optimism for the masses of people.

Hard-drinking was, however, a problem, a feature of Dublin life: all the attendant miseries of excess drinking, the hardship of broken families and unfulfilled hopes were only too evident in the city. From his early teens up to the age of twenty-eight Matt Talbot was a hard drinking man, never a day idle but enduring a source of distress to those who loved him. In 1884, however, Matt stopped drinking and made a three month pledge to God he would refrain from the habit. Despite great temptations in the early stages of his conversions he never took a drink again. The remaining forty-one years of his life were lived heroically by Matt in attending daily Mass, in constant prayer, in helping the poor and indeed in the ascetic life-style of Celtic spirituality.

The chains found on his body at death were not some extreme penitential regime but a symbol of his devotion to Mary, Mother of God that he wished to give himself to her totally as a slave. This life was his prayer to God and his defence against a reversion to alcoholism. He died on Trinity Sunday, 7th June 1925, in Granby Lane on his way to Mass in the Dominican Church nearby. Within a few short years of his death his reputation as a saintly man and especially as a patron protector of those suffering from all forms of addiction, and their families, was being established. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery and then in 1972 his remains were removed to a tomb in Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Sean McDermott Street, Dublin, in the area where Matt spent his life. Every day pilgrims come to pray at his tomb, many come in organised pilgrimages from overseas as well as Ireland.

Matt has a tremendous following in North America and there is particular devotion to him there. The pilgrims pray to Matt asking him in turn to pray for them and their loved ones and they also pray for him that he may soon be raised to the company of the Saints in Heaven.”

Note: Thank you, Michael, for sending this link. (Michael, his wife, Noreen, and Fr. Brian Lawless, Vice-Postulator for the Cause for Matt Talbot, are currently giving talks and workshops on addiction and the life of Matt Talbot in Ireland.)

In the hunt for miracles

2011-08-06T18:24:00.003-04:00

Although his initial focus in this post is on Katherine of Aragon, Fr John Hogan, OCDS, opines on Irish Causes for sainthood, including Matt Talbot, and states that

“we should be pushing, knocking doors and dropping prayer cards all over the world in the hunt for miracles."

http://fatherdirector.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-saint.html#comments

Recovering from Lust, the “Matt Talbot Way”

2011-07-31T16:26:00.004-04:00

Benjamin
Posted on 07/16/2011

http://www.purityreport.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=4978&pid=111484

”Been reading a book recently, and I thought I'd share. It's called To Slake A Thirst: The Matt Talbot Way to Sobriety by Philip Maynard. It's written for alcoholics, but like so much, if you just replace every instance of "drink" with "lust" it makes perfect sense. It proposes a new way of overcoming addiction, based on the example of Irishman Matt Talbot. The book is especially pertinent to Catholics, but is written so that all Christians can profit by it.

The essentials of the book are that all addicts have the willpower to overcome their addiction; they simply do not have the motivation. When they want their fix, there is nothing else in life that is more important. So, the solution is to make something, or rather someone, more important. The book focuses relentlessly on prayers said throughout the day, at waking, internally while going about one's life, in community, etc., focusing exclusively on fostering love of Christ.

You do not pray to be relived of the addiction, you pray only and constantly to be brought closer to Christ. In doing so, you create a bond of love so real, palpable, and permanent, that it simply eclipses the other loves you have within you, for drink or sex or anything else. The desire for those things remains, but your love of Christ becomes so strong that you eagerly give them up for love of him. In fact, your painful addiction becomes a kind of joy, because you can offer up the pain of giving up those things to Christ as a gift, which only further increases your love of Him.

The book is straightforward, insightful, and moving, and I really recommend it (I'm sure it's on amazon). It's an excellent alternative to the mindset and methodology of 12-step programs, because it looks at the solution to addiction from a very Christian perspective, and truly proposes a path of heroic virtue and sacrifice as the proper path, which is much more appealing than the 12 steps, to me. It proposes that through Christ, lust can actually be conquered, instead of just repressed from day to day, as in 12 steps. Seriously, look it up.”

A Song about Matt Talbot

2011-07-28T20:36:00.004-04:00

Derek Warfield wrote the words and music for his song, “Matt Talbot,” which is included in his album, Legacy. The lyrics follow:

Oh saintly matt talbot a labouring man
You worked and you toiled did the best
That you can.
There were times just for drinking you lived
Thru your life with reality clouded midst hardship and strife
For no hope it is offered there seemed no way out
And you found consilation in whiskey and stout
In to misery and suffering you soon were to stray
For this is the wage of the alcohol way:

Chorus

Now the city of dublin had europe’s worst slums
But for faith and for prayer you’d never have won
But the spirit of enda and brendan retold
Gave you inspiration thru christian way’s old
Then the path of st. Ciaran and colman you choose
And above the dublin city your proud spirit rose
For you sought thru your prayer that your voice
Would be heard and you showed thru your penance

you loved and you cared

In this town of eblana you were barren of hope

And you prayed for a way you could live and could cope
Then one saturday evening you stood back from the edge
And in holy cross college you then took the pledge
From that day till your death you spent time on your knees
Wanting only to pray and yor god for to please
And the workers of dublin said barney a chara
For they knew that you prayed for all children of sorrow

Full chorus as above

With the minds of your masters all blinded by greed
To the cause of the workers and families in need
Oh you stood, by your comrades, you knew their cause just
And your stand although simple in matt talbot there’s trust
And the streets and the alleys all echo your name
Just to know that you walked them in penance and shame
And there’s many a dublin man husband or wife
Who whisper your name for to let in god’s light

Full chorus as above

Now the city of dublin
Had europe’s worst slums
But for faith and for prayer you’d never have won
But the spirit of endaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

End.

Source: http://unitedireland.tripod.com/matt_talbot_lyrics.html

A sample of this song can be played at

http://www.amazon.com/Matt-Talbot/dp/B003DYJNCQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1311812519&sr=1-1

Biographical information about Derek can be found at http://www.theyoungwolfetones.com/?page_id=21

In Praise of Lay Saints

2011-07-27T18:05:00.001-04:00

In this weekly video commentary for America: The National Catholic Weekly, Fr. James Martin, S.J., discusses “why the Vatican needs to recognize ordinary men and women who have lead extraordinary lives of holiness.” It can be viewed at http://www.americamagazine.org/content/video/video-index.cfm?series_id=1268

His print article on “Why We Need to Canonize More Lay Saints” can be found at http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=4368

Fr. Martin is the author of My Life with the Saints (2006) among other books.

“An Almost-Saint who Knows Addiction”

2011-07-24T14:56:00.003-04:00

In their parenting book titled, Good Parents, Tough Times: How Your Catholic Faith Provides Hope and Guidance in Times of Crisis (Loyola Press, 2004),
the authors Charlene Giannetti and Margaret Sagarese have a chapter on “hope.” Within it they introduce “Venerable Matt Talbot: An Almost-Saint who Knows Addiction.”

To read what they have written for a family struggling with substance abuse, please go to

http://books.google.ie/books?id=gbNsLZtmrUYC&pg=PA100&dq=matt+talbot+sunday&hl=en&ei=2YcoTqzvMOOBsgLp16g7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-preview-link&resnum=2&ved=0CDUQuwUwATgy#v=onepage&q&f=false

Within the “Search within this book” box, type in "Matt Talbot" and note pages 98-102. You might also read about other saints mentioned in this chapter.

Pope John XXIII referred to Matt Talbot in a letter

2011-07-16T17:17:00.013-04:00

In a letter sent by Pope John XXIII (IOANNES XXIII PP.) to the Most Rev. John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, on the occasion of the Centenary of Holy Cross College, Clonliffe (then the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Dublin), he mentions Abbot Columba Marmion and Matt Talbot in the following excerpt:

“In this survey of the history of your Seminary, short though it may be, We cannot fail to mention the names of two personages whose virtues are renowned throughout the world: Abbot Columba Marmion, who was first a student and later a Professor in the College; and Matthew Talbot, who strove earnestly after great sanctity when he had been rescued from vice through the influence of one of the Professors of the College.”

The entire letter can be found at http://lxoa.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/pope-john-xxiii-on-holy-cross-college-clonliffe/

On September 3, 2000 Pope John XXIII was declared “Blessed” by Pope John Paul II, who himself was declared “Blessed” in 2011.

For two references see http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Sep2000/feature1.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_XXIII

Blessed Columba Marmion (1858-1923), beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 3, 2000, was one of the most popular and influential Catholic writers of the 20th century. Matt Talbot (1956-1925) was declared “Venerable” by Pope Paul VI on October 3, 1976.

For three references to Bl. Columba Marmion, see http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006,/czehnder_bmarmion_sept06.asp,http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20000903_columba-marmion_en.html, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columba_Marmion

Matt Talbot Sunday (2011)

2011-07-10T17:05:00.000-04:00

by V. Rev. Eoin McCrystal, P.P.

Holy Trinity Parish

Donaghmede-Clongriffin-Balgriffin

http://holytrinityparish.ie/2011/07/pastors-desk-matt-talbot-sunday/

Welcome everyone, as we gather to celebrate Matt Talbot Sunday. The Sunday after Corpus Christi Sunday is always reserved for The Venerable Matt Talbot. I am conscious that a younger generation might not know too much about Matt Talbot and so I hope to share a little insight to his life.

Matt was born on the 2nd May 1856 at Aldborough Court in the city centre. He was the second of 12 children of which only 9 survived. He was baptised 3 days after his birth in the Pro Cathedral Dublin. His early school life was not a success; one report describes him as a “mitcher”. He got a job at around 12 years of age as a messenger boy for E & J Burke Ltd Wine Merchants, who bottled stout and ale and so began his drinking life. He was usually to be found in O’Meara’s Pub on the North Strand (now Cusack’s) and he received his pay in there every Saturday morning. He reached a low point when he stole a fiddle from a blind man in order to buy drink. When he became unemployed his “friends” in O’Meara’s ignored him and he decided to take the pledge. He went up to Clonliffe College and took a three month pledge and experienced the most difficult months of his life. Where can he go in order to avoid the pub! He takes refuge in the churches of the city, beginning his day with 5.30am Mass in Gardiner St. and joins the Men’s Sodalities in Gardiner St. and Merchants Quay. His father died in 1899 and he and his mother moved a number of times around the city after that. In 1909 he was working permanently for T & C Martin and was a member of the ITGWU. He went out on strike with the union in 1913 under Jim Larkin. His mother dies in 1915. The President of Clonliffe College becomes his anam-chara (soul friend, spiritual director) for the next 25 years. He took no part in the 1916 Rising but kept notes on the men shot and prayed for them. He has bouts of stays in the Mater Hospital in 1923 for heart and kidney problems. In 1925 on the 7th June he collapsed and died in the street on Granby Lane. In 1937 the Papal Decree introduced his cause and he was declared Venerable on the 3rd October 1975.

People who suffer with addiction to drink or drugs invoke his intercession as do families with an addict living among them. Matt understands the pain that is suffered by both. Today let us remember Matt and pray for those afflicted by addiction.

Matt Talbot: Denying All to Gain All

2011-07-10T16:52:00.001-04:00

By Donald R. McClarey
June 19, 2011

http://the-american-catholic.com/2011/06/19/matt-talbot-denying-all-to-gain-all/

Matt Talbot was a drunk. He came to this state partly as a result of nature and nurture, as his father was an alcoholic, as were most of Matt’s brothers. Born into a poverty stricken home on May 2, 1856 in Dublin he became an unskilled laborer who blew most of his wages on feeding his addiction to drink. The worst thing he did to buy alcohol was to steal a fiddle from a street performer and sell it for booze. Penniless in 1884, he took the pledge not to drink and kept it for the remainder of his life.

However, turning away from alcohol was only a small part of his transformation. In order to truly change one’s life it is never enough to turn away from something. We must also turn to something. Talbot turned to God. He began to attend daily Mass and and read books and pamphlets on the Faith. He repaid his debts and, after a fruitless search for the fiddler whose fiddle he stole, donated the money he wanted to pay the fiddler for his stolen fiddle to the Church for Masses to be said for the fiddler.

Talbot led an ascetic life thereafter, eating little and giving away much of his wages to charities and to help his fellow workers. He wore heavy chains and cords under his clothes as a penance and on Sundays would hear several Masses. He got up early every day to go to daily Mass, and he would normally spend his evenings on his knees in prayer. He did all of this while continuing to earn his daily bread as a laborer. He lived with his mother until her death in 1915 and then alone until his own death in 1925. It is entirely possible that, other than by God, he would have been entirely forgotten after his death, except that he died on the streets of Dublin on his way to Mass on June 7, 1925, and after his death the chains and cords he wore under his clothes were discovered.

In his death, Matt Talbot achieved a fame that had been a complete stranger to him in his quiet and obscure life. He quickly became a symbol of the Irish temperance movement. John Paul II as a young man wrote a paper about him. He was declared Venerable by Pope Paul VI.

Irish playwright and drunk Brendan Behan contended that Matt Talbot had been a figure of ridicule among his fellow workers because of his piety. I have little doubt of it since sanctity can make a great many people uneasy, especially when the person exhibiting it seems otherwise to be quite ordinary. Venerable Matt Talbot through his life reminds us all that sainthood is within the grasp of each of us but that it sometimes, in Earthly terms, can be a daunting path. Matt Talbot led a life of prayer, religious devotion, asceticism, penance and voluntary poverty that emulated the extreme self-denial of a monk or a nun of a very strict order, and he did it all while living in the World. He gave up everything to gain everything.

"The Sacred Heart and the Venerable Matt Talbot"

2011-07-07T20:19:00.003-04:00

This article by Fr. Sean Coyle was posted July 1, 2011 at
http://bangortobobbio.blogspot.com/2011/07/sacred-heart-and-venerable-matt-talbot.html

A related article, "Matt Talbot's connection with the Columbans," can be found at http://www.misyononline.com/nov-dec07-msview1

or http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2008/01/matt-talbots-connection-with-columban.html

The video included in Fr. Coyle’s article can also be found at

http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2010/06/brief-video-about-venerable-matt-talbot_8544.html

The impact of Matt Talbot's life on others

2011-06-22T16:30:00.011-04:00

[The author of the first article refers to the impact of Matt Talbot on moral cures and conversions.]

"Something about conversion stories...and the danger of relapse"

by Terry Nelson

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

http://abbey-roads.blogspot.com/2011/06/something-about-conversion-stories.html

When you find unchanging peace on your way, then fear; because you are far from the right path by which the righteous go with suffering feet. - St. Isaac the Syrian

Conversion stories are edifying and oftentimes amazing. Sensational sinners repent and come into the Church and the world stands in awe before the grace and mercy of God. Frequently they demonstrate the efficacy of prayer and sacrifice, the sacraments, to effect such conversions. Christ tells us in the Gospel heaven itself erupts in joy over just one sinner who repents.
.
We must not be too ready to trust young men who have great devotion; we must wait till their wings are grown, and then see what sort of a flight they make. -St. Philip Neri

.
In our times, the idea of conversion sometimes carries with it an expectation of honors - like the Prodigal Son's homecoming - celebrated with parties and gifts and even celebrity. I sometimes get the impression that some Catholics have adopted the Protestant attitude of born-again Christians as regards the grace of conversion. Many think you do it once and you are saved for life - and there is some sort of immediate reward, as least something as pleasant as a good 'approval rating'. Especially when they write a blog or a book about it. That can be a lot to live up to.
.
A virtuous life consists in mortifying vices, sins, bad thoughts, and evil affections, and in exercising ourselves in the acquisition of holy virtues. - St. Philip Neri

.
The reality is that conversion is an ongoing process wherein one never is immune from backsliding or relapse - especially when one's sin was habitual and sensual - Philip Neri said sins of sensuality and avarice are particularly hard to cure. The Gospel tells us, 'how narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life', and that is just the road, the way that leads to life. Thus one never arrives at some point in one's journey where one can say, "I'm healed and okay now. I've arrived. I will not fall back." For many of us the struggle never ends. Through the action of grace we may go 'from strength to strength' but we are always dependent upon God's grace and mercy, and we must deny ourselves each day and take up our cross to follow Christ, who was hassled and harried, scoffed at and despised and all of that stuff we think we know about him.
.
We must never trust ourselves, for it is the devil’s way first to get us to feel secure, and then to make us fall. - St. Philip Neri

.
Moral conversions which involve recovery from substance abuse or sexual addiction are not only hard fought, they can be very difficult to verify. For example, the penitent St. Margaret Cortona was refused entrance into the Third Order of St. Francis for three years while the friars tested her virtue - and then suspicion of her virtue never ceased to plague her. Another example, in our day, rarely if ever are moral cures recognized or accepted in the process for the canonization of saints. This is no more evident than in the cause for Matt Talbot. Numerous claims of moral cures and conversions (from addiction) are attributed to Talbot, yet none have been accepted as miraculous. Perhaps a few could be accepted now if it could be established that a person persevered without relapse until death, but I don't know if any such case has been postulated so far.
.
All sins are highly displeasing to God, but above all sensuality and avarice, which are very difficult to cure. - St. Philip Neri

.
My point is that the devil delights in pulling us back into sin - the more dramatic the conversion, the bigger the convert, the greater the effort to snare him back - to make him 'return to his vomit' so that his 'last sin may be worse than the first'. I sometimes think that is why the Lord permits some of us to keep falling into our former sins, so that we may become more and more humble, and by repenting, glorify his mercy that never gives up on us, 'for he knows we are but dust', weak and inconstant - our only constancy being our need for his mercy, for our conversion and our salvation is so unstable. We need patience to do God's will. Patience involves suffering. And perseverance.
.
He who cannot put up with the loss of his honour, can never make any advance in spiritual things. - St. Philip Neri

[The following comment was posted at another website in response to an article about the life of Matt Talbot.]

“I am not an alcoholic, smoker nor a drug addict but like the old self of Venerable Matt Talbot, I have silent addictions on my own. Whenever I feel bad and down or even bored or just plain lazy, I dwell into these addictions to calm me down. In a sense, they have became my god to which I run to whenever I need to escape the sad or boring realities of life. But my real God thru His only begotten Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit never rests to find me. And I am just thankful that he has directed me to read about the life of Venerable Matt Talbot to show me how much he cares about me. I am excited to start living my “sober” years yet “drunk” of His heavenly wine.”

Source: http://wau.org/resources/article/re_the_alcoholic_who_became_a_saint/

Note: Many other examples on the impact of Matt Talbot’s life, especially for recovering others, can be found in messages we have already posted. For example, Philip Maynard authored To Slake a Thirst: The Matt Talbot Way to Sobriety (2000) as a result of his own transformation by following the method outlined in this work.

“Matt Talbot: Witnessing through humility in poverty”

2011-06-21T17:38:00.002-04:00

[The example of Matt Talbot is mentioned in this homily.]

MASS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DELEGATES OF THE SOCIETY OF SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL

Homily Notes of
Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland
-----------
Our Lady of Lourdes, Sean McDermot Street, 1st June 2011

“...You will have seen that this Church contains the remains of a remarkable saintly man of Dublin, Matt Talbot. He lived as an ordinary worker in the midst of the daily challenge of alcohol abuse and of harsh poverty and deprivation. He was a true mystic in his life but he witnessed not through writings but through an almost unnoticed humility in poverty. It is interesting that the only written text that we have from him is a donation: he scribbled his donation to a newly formed missionary society on a small piece of paper: ‘two pounds, from a poor man, Matt Talbot’...”

Source: The entire homily can be found at http://www.dublindiocese.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2458&Itemid=372