Feast Day of a Martyred Saint Who Died an Active Addict

Today is the the feast day of St. Mark Ji Tianxiang. The Roman Catholic Church recognized 120 Catholics who died between 1648 and 1930 as its “Martyr Saints of China.” They were canonized by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000. Of the group, 87 were Chinese laypeople and 33 were missionaries; 86 died during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, including Tianxiang and family members.

"He was an opium addict who couldn’t receive the sacraments. But he’s a martyr and a saint”

by Meg Hunter-Kilmer

July 06, 2017

https://aleteia.org/2017/07/06/he-was-an-opium-addict-who-couldnt-receive-the-sacraments-but-hes-a-martyr-and-a-saint/?utm_campaign=NL_en&utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=NL_en

St. Mark Ji Tianxiang was an opium addict. Not had been an opium addict. He was an opium addict at the time of his death. 

For years, Tianxiang was a respectable Christian, raised in a Christian family in 19th-century China. He was a leader in the Christian community, a well-off doctor who served the poor for free. But he became ill with a violent stomach ailment and treated himself with opium. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but Tianxiang soon became addicted to the drug, an addiction that was considered shameful and gravely scandalous.

As his circumstances deteriorated, Tianxiang continued to fight his addiction. He went frequently to confession, refusing to embrace this affliction that had taken control of him. Unfortunately, the priest to whom he confessed (along with nearly everybody in the 19th century) didn’t understand addiction as a disease. Since Tianxiang kept confessing the same sin, he thought, that was evidence that he had no firm purpose of amendment, no desire to do better.

Without resolve to repent and sin no more, confession is invalid. After a few years, Tianxiang’s confessor told him to stop coming back until he got clean. For many, this would be an invitation to leave the Church in anger or shame, but for all his fallenness, Tianxiang knew himself to be loved by the Father. He knew that the Lord wanted his heart, even if he couldn’t manage to give over his life. He couldn’t stay sober, but he could keep showing up.

And show up he did, for 30 years. For 30 years, he was barred from receiving the sacraments. And for 30 years he prayed that he would die a martyr. It seemed to Tianxiang that the only way he could be saved was through a martyr’s crown. 

In 1900, when the Boxer Rebels began to turn against foreigners and Christians, Tianxiang got his chance. He was rounded up with dozens of other Christians, including his son, six grandchilden, and two daughters-in-law. Many of those imprisoned with him were likely disgusted by his presence there among them, this man who couldn’t go a day without a hit. Surely he would be the first to deny the Lord.
But while Tianxiang was never given the grace to beat his addiction, he was, in the end, flooded with the grace of final perseverance. No threat could shake him, no torture make him waver. He was determined to follow the Lord who had never abandoned him. 

As Tianxiang and his family were dragged to prison to await their execution, his grandson looked fearfully at him. “Grandpa, where are we going?” he asked. “We’re going home,” came the answer.
Tianxiang begged his captors to kill him last so that none of his family would have to die alone. He stood beside all nine of them as they were beheaded. In the end, he went to his death singing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And though he had been barred from the sacraments for decades, he is a canonized saint.

St. Mark Ji Tianxiang is a beautiful witness to the grace of God at work in the most hidden ways, to God’s ability to make great Saints of the most unlikely among us, and to the grace poured out on those who remain faithful when it seems even the Church herself is driving them away. 

On July 9, the feast of St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, let’s ask his intercession for all addicts and for all those who are unable to receive the sacraments, that they may have the courage to be faithful to the Church and that they may always grow in their love for and trust in the Lord. 
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, pray for us!

Note two related articles:

http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2011/10/this-drug-addict-is-martyred-saint.html

http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/2011/09/its-never-to-late-to-begin-again.html

The Dublin Mystic: Matt Talbot

by K. V. Turley*

March 17, 2016

http://catholicexchange.com/the-dublin-mystic-matt-talbot

On 8 June 1925, the following news item appeared in the Irish Independent:

Unknown Man’s Death

An elderly man collapsed in Granby Lane [Dublin] yesterday, and being taken to Jervis Street Hospital he was found to be dead. He was wearing a tweed suit, but there was nothing to indicate who he was. 

What was not reported was the unusual discovery when he was taken to hospital. He was wearing heavy chains: some wrapped around his legs, others on his body. Mortuary staff puzzled over not just who he was but, also, the meaning of the chains.

The newspaper report had appeared on a Monday morning. Later that night, police ushered a woman into the mortuary. She identified the body as that of her brother: Matt Talbot. A nursing nun present asked about the chains. The dead man’s sister replied simply that it was something he wore, and with that, they were placed in the coffin and the lid closed.

That was not the whole story though; the chains were part of the mystery of the man who had died. They were as symbolic as they were real. The man’s life having been a ‘crossing over’ from the servitude of vice to the freedom of those in chains for Christ.

Talbot was born in 1856 into a large Catholic family living in semi-poverty in Dublin. His schooling was slight. He was barely literate when he went to work full-time aged just 11 years old. For the rest of his life his occupation was as an unskilled labourer. He was exposed to harsh working conditions, at times harsh bosses and to a social environment that necessitated some form of release from this – this was found by many in the city’s public houses. Matt was no different, so much so that by his teenage years he was hopelessly addicted to alcohol.

Matt had the reputation of being a hard worker. Increasingly, however, that work ethic was simply the means to finance his ‘hard drinking’. As it grips, vice of whatever sort is hard to counter, especially when the will to oppose it diminishes, so it was with Matt Talbot – what had began as an escape soon became a prison of moral and spiritual degradation. And, the more time he spent there the more Matt needed alcohol to shield him from that reality. Those around watched and, shaking their heads, concluded that Talbot was a lost cause. But they were to be proved wrong and in a most unexpected way.

Fittingly, the second phase of Matt’s life began outside a pub. That day he had no money, and, therefore, hoped that some of his drinking fraternity would stand him a drink. As each acquaintance filed past, none offered to buy him anything. On that summer’s day in 1884, something occurred that was to change Matt Talbot forever. Humiliated by the indifference of his erstwhile friends, he turned and walked straight home. His mother was surprised to see him – at that early hour, and sober. He proceeded to clean himself up before announcing he was going to a nearby seminary to ‘take the pledge’ – a promise to abstain from all alcohol. His mother was mystified by this and fearful. She knew that pledges made to God were not something to be taken lightly. She counselled him against doing any such thing unless he was intent on persevering. He listened, and then left.

Matt did take the pledge that day. He also went to Confession. It was as dramatic as it was decisive. It had all the hallmarks of a genuine conversion, one as sincere as it was needed. Nevertheless, a conversion takes but a moment, the work of sanctity a lifetime: after years of drunkenness, still arraigned against Matt was a weakness of character and a world that revolved around alcohol. It looked as if the odds were stacked against him, but this was not solely a human undertaking. Into this ‘land of captivity’, from ‘across the Jordan’, there came invisible armies to fight alongside this now embattled soul, one embarked upon a war of liberation. This was not a new spiritual combat, but rather one that had commenced many years previously when this poor man’s parents brought a child to a parish church and asked for baptism in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

After his conversion, not much changed, outwardly at least: Matt continued with his employment in the docks. He continued to work hard, now respected more than ever by his fellow workers and employers who noticed that he had started to give his wages to his mother rather than straight to a publican. Nevertheless, work alone cannot satisfy the human heart. Previously, when not working his life had been many hours spent in public houses, but, now, he had turned his back on that. He had been ‘born anew’, but like a newborn was vulnerable to the world he inhabited. With no material substance to cling to he turned inward, to the Spirit that dwells within each baptised soul. And, as he did so, he commenced upon an adventure that few could have imagined possible.

From then on, along the Dublin streets, there moved a mystic soul. Each morning at 5AM, dressed in workman’s clothes a man knelt outside a city church waiting for the doors to open and the first Mass to begin. After the Holy Sacrifice, he would pray for a time before going to one of the timber yards near the docks. There, he laboured all day; but there were periods in the day when lulls and breaks would occur. Whilst his fellow workers gossiped or smoked, Matt chose to be alone, knelt in prayer in a hidden part of a workshop until the call came to return to his labours.

***

Each evening, when work was finished, Matt walked home with his fellow workers. They knew their companion’s free time was spent praying in some city church before the Blessed Sacrament. Often he asked them to join him in making a visit to Our Blessed Lord. Some did. After a short while, however, they would leave with Matt still knelt in the gathering twilight. Eventually, when at night he did return home it was to yet more prayer – and mortification. His bed was a plank of wood, a piece of that same material his pillow. Although respected by those he lived amongst and worked alongside, and not unfriendly, he had few visitors. Those who did encounter him felt he was not quite of this world; they were right; he was travelling ever inwards on a mystical journey to a freedom he could never have dreamt of when trapped in an alcoholic stupor.

When his belongings were found after his death, one of the surprises was the number of books he owned. Inquires soon revealed that he had slowly, but determinedly, taught himself to read and, as he did so, effectively began a course of study that included the spiritual classics, the lives of Saints, doctrinal books, and works of mystical and ascetical theology. When asked how he, a poor workman, could read the works of St. Augustine, Newman et al, his reply was as straightforward as it was telling. He said he asked the Holy Spirit to enlighten him. And so, he grew in an intellectual understanding of his faith, which in turn deepened the prayer and penance he undertook. Here was a 20^th Century heir to the spiritual traditions of the ancient Irish monks, albeit one now living not on an island monastery but in the slums of Dublin, but, like those earlier contemplatives his life was work, study and prayer with eyes turned ever inward to the Holy Trinity.

Matt never married; held no position of note, was unknown outside his own small circle of family and friends – only one blurred photograph has survived him- and, yet, this was a rare man: one who had taken the Gospel at its word and lived it.

His lifetime ran alongside the then momentous events in Irish history. A time of cultural renaissance and nationalist fervour, of a Great Strike in 1913 and open revolution in 1916, of the Great War and a War for Independence, throughout it all his life remained largely unchanged. Matt knew all too well that kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, but that he had set his face to serve a different Kingdom, one shown him in 1884 when he confessed all and cast himself into the hands of the Living God.

By 1925, Matt was 69. He had been in poor health for some time. Out of necessity he tried to continue working as there was only limited relief for the poor or elderly, but his strength was failing. Nevertheless, he persisted in his prayer and penance. On 7 June 1925, whilst struggling down a Dublin alleyway on his way to Mass, he fell. A small crowd gathered around him. A Dominican priest was called from the nearby church, the one where Matt had been hurrying. The priest came and knelt over the fallen man. Realising what had happened, he lifted his hand in a blessing for the final journey. Little did he realise the dead stranger lying in front of him had already been on that ‘journey’ for over 40 years.

Having lived in the intimacy of the Triune God, it was apt Matt died on Trinity Sunday. Having lived off the Eucharist daily for more than 40 years, it was equally fitting he was buried on the feast of Corpus Christi.

Decades later, a visiting Italian priest went privately to pray at the grave of the Dublin worker he had heard so much about. In 1975, and after the due process had been completed, that same cleric, now Pope Paul VI, bestowed a new title upon that Irish workman: Venerable Matt Talbot.

There is a large trunk in the safe keeping of the Archdiocese of Dublin. It contains the books owned by Venerable Matt Talbot. A veritable treasury of spiritual theology, one of the books contained therein is True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort. In its pages it reflects on being a slave to this world or to the Blessed Virgin. For those that choose the latter path it recommends, after due recourse to a spiritual director and the suitable enrolment, that a chain be worn to symbolise that that soul no longer belongs to the powers of darkness but is now a child of the light. On that June day in 1925, when Matt Talbot fell upon a Dublin street, it was dressed as a slave to Mary and as an ambassador of Christ.

*K. V. Turley is a London based freelance writer and filmmaker with a degree in theology.

Lenten lessons from Venerable Matt Talbot

[We greatly appreciate the recent articles about Matt Talbot in this publication.]

Seize the Grace!

Lenten lessons from Matt Talbot, the holy alcoholic

By: Bob French

The Word Among Us: Lent 2015 issue

Source: http://wau.org/archives/article/seize_the_grace/

 

 

  Sometimes it seems like changing bad habits takes forever. But is that an illusion? Is change fast, or is it slow?

I think most of us would be inclined to say that change comes slowly, especially when it involves deeply entrenched patterns of behavior. We think of long hours at the gym to lose weight or months of struggle to overcome an addiction like smoking. Change feels like a long, grueling process, which is why so many of us fail to even attempt it. Except, perhaps, when we make resolutions for Lent or the New Year.

But consider, for a moment, the “I do” at the altar, the cry of a newborn, or the words “You are a priest forever.” In a split second, lives are changed. Never again can the couple not have been married, the woman not have been a mother, or the man not have been a priest. Everything is different from that point forward. Or think of Confession: our sins are erased in much less time than it takes to commit them!

In one sense, then, change is very fast, even instantaneous. But living it out? Now that’s a different story. So the question is: once we receive the grace to get serious about overcoming some compulsion, addiction, or bad habit, how can we keep acting on this decision over the long haul? While there are no easy answers, it can help to look at people who have experienced this “fast change, slow change” dynamic. One exceptional model is Matthew Talbot, the Irish workman whom Pope Paul VI declared venerable in 1975.

Seize the Grace! Born in Dublin in 1856, Matt Talbot was an alcoholic. Not a nice “society drinker,” but a down-and-out drunk from a family of heavy drinkers. The Talbots were poor, and Matt attended school for only a year before leaving at age twelve to work in a wine shop. He began to drink there, and before long was a full-blown alcoholic. 

To support his habit, he went on to work in a warehouse and a construction company. All of his wages he spent in the pubs, often with his father and brothers. He was known to pawn his clothes and boots to get money for drink; once he even stole a fiddle from a blind street musician.

For sixteen years, Matt lived only for booze, careening from work to pub and back again, falling further and further into the grip of addiction. Then one day, when he was broke and none of his buddies would buy him a drink, Matt suddenly realized what a mess he was making of his life. In a grace-filled flash, he determined to “take the pledge” to stop drinking for three months. He went home and told his mother, who had been praying for his conversion but advised him not to make the promise unless he truly intended to change. “God give you the strength to keep the pledge,” she said, as Matt went off to seek his first Confession in many years.

Decide and Tell. Matt’s mom was on to something: the first key to changing is to decide. Not to just think about it, but to seize and act on the grace to make a decision. Often we “want to want” to change, but when it comes right down to it, we aren’t all that keen on actually making an irrevocable decision to change. However, that’s where it all starts. And as with Matt, it can happen in an instant.

When we are brutally honest with ourselves, we know when we have really decided and when we are just playing games. A real decision comes from deep within the soul; we know for certain that we have crossed a line, and there’s no turning back. It’s like Jesus, when he “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). When Matt Talbot took the pledge, there was no looking back.

But that’s just the beginning. Along with making a decision, it’s essential to tell someone about it. Life coaches call this “accountability.” A decision made in private and kept secret is all too easy to dismiss. In Matt’s case, his mother was a witness and reminder of his decision to give up drinking. When we change, we too must let someone know. After all, that’s one reason weddings and ordinations are public events: everyone attending is a witness to the change.

It is also one of the reasons that we confess to a priest. As part of the sacrament, we say that we resolve to sin no more. The priest is witness to our decision to change, and the penance he gives us is our reminder that we have made that decision before God.

Cultivate Self-Discipline. While Matt Talbot’s instantaneous decision set him on a course of holiness, it took the rest of his life to live out the change. He did it by learning self-discipline, by living out his resolution over and over, day by day. This is the slow part of change—the part that isn’t as much fun.

“Never look down on a man who cannot give up the drink. It is easier to get out of hell!” Matt once wrote his sister. But he kept at it. After three months, he extended his pledge to six months. Eventually, with the help of a priest friend, his sobriety became lifelong. 

Matt did more than just resist the urge to drink. Some of his additional self-discipline came in the form of physical mortification: he slept on a plank, ate very little, and even wore hidden chains around his waist, arm and leg (a physical discipline recommended by his spiritual advisor). He also maintained a cheerful attitude, gave most of his money to the poor, and put in a honest day’s labor for his wages. 

Although some of Matt’s ascetical practices were extreme, most of us would also benefit from cultivating self-discipline. We too can learn to control our attitude, work diligently at our occupations, and put the needs of others before our own wants. 

“Jesus, Mercy!” So is the “fast” part of change mostly God’s work, and the “slow” part mostly a matter of our own striving? Not at all! No amount of resolve and discipline can guarantee success. This is another lesson from Matt Talbot’s life: the whole process of changing requires the grace of God. Right away, Matt realized that he couldn’t overcome his addiction on his own; he had to surrender to God and allow the Holy Spirit to provide the strength he lacked. 

The morning after he took the pledge, fearful and anxious about not being able to keep it, Matt went to Mass and received Communion. He did this every day for the rest of his life. He was on his way to Mass, in fact, when he died of heart failure on June 7, 1925.

Especially in his first three months of sobriety, Matt learned to throw himself on God’s mercy. One day, plagued by an inner voice that kept saying, “It’s no use. You’ll never stop drinking,” he knelt with outstretched arms on the cathedral steps and prayed, “Jesus, mercy! Mary, help!” Another time, after going into a pub and almost ordering a drink, Matt spent the rest of the day in church, praying for help against temptation; he also decided never to carry money again.

If we’re making a change, we too can draw strength from frequent reception of the Eucharist and Confession. We can turn to the Lord in prayer. Devotions like the rosary are a great aid, as is spiritual reading—beginning with the Bible. Spending even ten minutes a day reading something uplifting can help us both rely on God and grow in resolve to face the challenges that come with living out real change.

Seek the Change that Matters. To his friends and even his family, Matt Talbot looked like an ordinary, hard-working man with a strong religious bent. On the inside, though, he was a warrior waging a spiritual battle that lasted forty years and made him a hero of the faith. His story shows us that the deepest and longest-lasting changes aren’t the showy, splashy announcements. They are the inner decisions that may only take a second to make but require a lifetime to live out.

This Lent, let’s ask the Holy Spirit for his guidance and power to help us address the areas in our own lives that need changing for the good. And as we do, let’s remember Venerable Matt Talbot, who stopped drinking in a moment—and spent the rest of his life making good on that change.

 

"Confession-the now forgotten sacrament in Ireland?"

Once he decided to give up alcohol, Matt Talbot went to confession and then took a three-month pledge. Regular confession became one important aspect of his new life changes to stay sober and grow in love of Jesus Christ.

In light of the Divine Mercy homily given by Irish Cardinal Sean Brady yesterday and reported below, confession appears much less common in Ireland today than it was during Matt's lifetime. One might argue that active Irish alcoholics are even more likely not to go to confession than in the general population of Catholics.

Although it is not the same as confession with absolution by a priest, Alcoholics Anonymous (and other twelve-step programs) has a type of confession, although that word is not used within this program of recovery.

Step 4 asks the alcoholic to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of himself/herself. This step is recommended to be done with the guidance of a sponsor. Once completed, Step 5 asks the alcoholic to admit to God, to himself/herself, and to another human being the exact nature of his/her wrongs. That other human being could be the sponsor, or anyone familiar with the program, including a priest. The heavy burden lifted can be a life-changing experience that may eventually lead the non-confessing

Catholic alcoholic back to the confessional.

"Confession is now the 'forgotten sacrament -- cardinal"

By John Cooney
Irish Independent News

March 31, 2008

CONFESSION has become the "forgotten sacrament" for many Irish Catholics, according to Cardinal Sean Brady.

Preaching at Knock Shrine in County Mayo yesterday, the Primate of All-Ireland also linked the decline in confession to a wider spiritual crisis in values in an increasingly violent and celebrity-obsessed society.

He called on pilgrims attending a special Divine Mercy Sunday service to pray for a renewal of the traditional practice of confessing personal sins to a priest for absolution, a central feature of Irish Catholicism until a few decades ago.

"When we cease to worship God, we can lose the sense of direction and of purpose in life," the 68-year-old Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh warned.

He observed that the consequences of today's spiritual crisis in society -- or a crisis of values -- were becoming increasingly evident.

"We are becoming a more heartless, less forgiving and a less merciful society," he said.

"You see it in an increasingly aggressive and competitive attitude, in the more frequent resort to violence, in the relentless pursuit of the vulnerabilities of celebrities and public figures, for entertainment rather than for legitimate public interest and in the merciless culture of image compliance, not least among the young."

Cardinal Brady also suggested that this crisis was probably linked to our increasing departure from the practice of the Catholic faith, and to our loss of a sense of our being created and therefore dependent on a Creator other than ourselves.

"The problem cannot be addressed by social or political initiatives alone," he said.

"Our society needs a change of heart about God, about the Church, about living, enjoying and sharing a faith which makes us more loving and human."

Referring to yesterday's Gospel reading, Cardinal Brady quoted Christ's words to his apostles after the Resurrection that 'those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.'

"What incredible words," added the Cardinal. "What consoling words. The mercy of God is completely available to us. It is willingly and generously offered."

Source: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/confession--is-now-the-forgotten-sacrament--cardinal-1332858.html?service=Print