The Venerable Matt Talbot Resource Center exists to compile writings about the life, times, conversion, and recovery from alcoholism of Matt Talbot (1856-1925) of Dublin, Ireland. Disclaimer: The placing of information on this site from external linked sources does not necessarily imply agreement with that information. This center is independent of any other center, group, organization, website, or Facebook page. Comments are welcome at: ven.matt.talbot.resource.center@gmail.com
“Virtue, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is a good quality of mind, by
which a person lives righteously, and of which he / she cannot make bad
use...”
“...A concrete example of Thomas’s definition of virtue arises in the
life of Matt Talbot, an Irish drunk of the early 20th century. Talbot spent his
evenings and weekends getting drunk in local pubs. One Friday evening, he found
himself in sorry situation, not only had he spent his week’s wages, but none of
his friends were willing to buy him a pint. In a moment of grace, Matt realized just how low he had sunk. He didn’t
get drunk that night but went home to bed. Talbot knew that one night of
sobriety did not mean he possessed any virtue, and that the slightest temptation
would send him headlong into a drunken stupor. But firmly determined to change
his life, and to avoid temptation, he not only changed his normal path of
walking to work (to avoid the pubs) but kept no money in his pockets. Eventually
his perseverance paid off and he acquired the virtue – ‘a permanent disposition’
not only to avoid getting drunk, but to do it with facility, promptly, and with
joy. That’s virtue.”
“Yesterday
I sent a letter to the Holy Father Francis inviting him to visit Shrine of
Venerable Matt Talbot during the August pilgrimage to Dublin. I also included
several cards with the image of Venerable Matt.”
Let us pray for families suffering the scourge of addictions. (Mention
your intentions here.) Pray the Act of Consecration of the Family to The
Divine Mercy (below). Venerable Matt Talbot, pray for us.
Act of Consecration of the Family to The Divine
Mercy
O Jesus, you showed
us your infinite compassionate
love by exhausting the very last
drop of blood and water from your body.
From this day forward, with full
confidence, we entrust our families to Your
Divine Mercy. We abandon our
past, our present and our
future. We place into your
wounds all of our wounds which are caused by lack of love, understanding and trust. Jesus,
expel Satan and all evil from our
families, free us from the consequence of
sin and protect us from further
harm. Heal our wounds. May our families learn to
venerate your Divine Image that they will never
perish but experience your loving
mercy. Amen.
A Venerable Matt Talbot Novena Mass will be celebrated on
the first Friday of every month at 7:30 pm at St. Bernadette’s Church, Clogher
Road, Dublin 12.
The
parish priest is Very Reverend Brian Lawless, P.P. who also continues to
serve as the Vice Postulator: Cause of the Venerable Matt Talbot.
While most of us would like for the pope to visit Venerable
Matt Talbot’s Shrine, the brevity of his visit probably precludes it, but we can
hope that he at least acknowledges
Matt during his visit.
An old Cherokee Chief is teaching his grandson about life.
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One is
evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt,
resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love,
hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every
other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you
feed.”
This is just one of
many online photographs of the Matt Talbot Monument, near Dublin’s Matt Talbot
Bridge. The sculpture is by James Power (1918-2009), one of Ireland’s most
respected sculptors.
On 6 November 1931, Archbishop Byrne of Dublin opened a sworn
inquiry into the alleged claims of holiness of the former dock worker named Matt
Talbot.
The Apostolic Process, the official sworn inquiry at the
Vatican, began in 1947.
On 3 October 1975 Pope
Paul VI declared him to be Venerable Matt Talbot, which is a step on the
road to his canonisation, a process which needs evidence of a
physical miracle in order to be successful.
Last week a young man who was beginning to address the possibility of being an alcoholic asked, "How does one pray?" He stated that praying and religious faith were not part of his upbringing. Had this article been read and printed, it might have been helpful.
Let’s get very, very basic and very, very practical about
prayer. The single most important piece of advice I know about prayer is also
the simplest: Just do it! How to do it is less important than just doing it.
Less-than-perfect prayer is infinitely better than no prayer; more perfect
prayer is only finitely better than less perfect prayer.
Nancy Reagan was criticized for her simple anti-drug slogan:
“Just say no.” But there was wisdom there: the wisdom that the heart of any
successful program to stop anything must be the simple will to say no. (“Just
say no” doesn’t mean that nothing else was needed, but that without that simple
decision nothing else would work. “Just say no” may not
be sufficient but it is necessary.)
Similarly, no program, method, book, teacher, or technique will
ever succeed in getting us to start doing anything unless there is
first of all that simple, absolute choice to do it. “Just say yes.”
The major obstacle in most of our lives to just saying yes to
prayer, the most popular and powerful excuse we give for not praying, or not
praying more, or not praying regularly, is that we have no time.
The only effective answer to that excuse, I find, is a kind of
murder. You have to kill something, you have to say no to something else, in
order to make time to pray. Of course, you will never find time to
pray, you have to make time to pray. And that means unmaking something
else. The only way to install the tenant of prayer in the apartment building of
your life is to evict some other tenant from those premises that prayer will
occupy. Few of us have any empty rooms available.
Deciding to do that is the first thing. And you probably won’t
decide to do it, only wish to do it, unless you see prayer for what it
is: a matter of life or death, your lifeline to God, to life itself.
Is this exaggerated? Are there more important things? Love, for
instance? We need love absolutely; but the love we need is agape, the
love that only God has and is; so unless we go to God for it, we won’t get it.
And going to God for it means prayer. So unless we pray, we will not
love.
Having got that clear and having made prayer your number one
priority, having made a definite decision to do it, we must next rearrange our
lives around it. Rearranging your time, preparing time to pray, is like
preparing your house to paint. As everyone knows who has done any painting,
preparation is three-quarters the work, three-quarters the hassle, and
three-quarters the time. The actual painting is a breeze compared with the
preparation.
The same is true of prayer: the hardest step is preparing a place,
a time, a sacred and inviolable part of each day for it. Prayer is like
Thanksgiving dinner. It takes one hour to eat it and ten hours to prepare it.
Prayer is like Christmas Day: it took a month of preparation, decoration, and
shopping to arrange for that one day. Best of all, prayer is like love. Foreplay
is, or should be, most of it. For two people truly and totally in love, all of
their lives together is foreplay. Well, prayer is like spiritual love-making.
God has waited patiently for you for a long, long time. He longs for you to
touch the fringe of his being in prayer, as the woman touched the hem of
Christ’s garment, so that you can be healed. How many hours did that woman have
to prepare for that one-minute touch?
The first and most important piece of practical preparation is
scheduling. You absolutely must schedule a regular time for prayer, whether you
are a “scheduler” with other things in your life or not. “Catch as catch can”
simply won’t work for prayer; it will mean less and less prayer, or none at all.
One quick minute in the morning to offer your day to God is better than nothing
at all, of course, but it is as radically inadequate as one quick minute a day
with your wife or husband. You simply must decide each day to free up your
schedule so you can pray.
How long a time? That varies with individuals and situations, of
course; but the very barest minimum should certainly be at least fifteen
minutes. You can’t really count on getting much deep stuff going on in less time
than that. If fifteen minutes seems too much to you, that fact is powerful proof
that you need to pray much more to get your head on straight. After it becomes more habitual and easy, expand it, double it.
And later, double it again. Aim at an hour each day, if you want radical
results. (Do you? Or are you only playing?)
What time of day is best? The most popular time—bedtime—is
usually the worst possible time, for two reasons. First, it tends not to be
prime time but garbage time, when you’re the least alert and awake. Do you
really want to put God in the worst apartment in your building? Should you offer
him the sickest sheep in your flock?
Second, it won’t work. If you wait until every other obligation
is taken care of first before you pray, you simply won’t pray. For life today is
so cruelly complicated for most of us that “every other obligation”
is never taken care of. Remember, you are going to have to kill other
things in order to pray. No way out of that.
The most obvious and usually best time is early in the morning.
If you can’t delay the other things you do, you simply must get up that much
earlier.
Should it be the very first thing? That depends. Some people are
alert as soon as they get up; others need to shower and dress to wake up. The
important thing is to give God the best time, and “just do it.”
Place is almost as important as time. You should make one
special place where you can be undisturbed. “Catch as catch can” won’t work for
place either.
What place? Some people are not very sensitive to environment
and can even use a bathroom. Others naturally seek beauty: a porch, yard,
garden, or walk. (I find praying while you take a walk a good combination of
spiritual and physical exercise.)
You probably noticed I haven’t said a word about techniques yet.
That’s because three-quarters is preparation, remember? But what about
methods?
I can only speak from my own experience as a continuing
beginner. The two most effective that I have found are very simple. One is
praying Scripture, reading and praying at the same time, reading in God’s
presence, receiving the words from God’s mouth. The second is spontaneous verbal
prayer. I am not good at all at silent prayer, mental prayer, contemplative
prayer; my thoughts hop around like fleas. Praying aloud (or singing) keeps me
praying, at least. And I find it often naturally leads to silent prayer often,
or “mental prayer,” or contemplation.
Most advice on prayer focuses on higher levels: contemplative
prayer. But I suspect many of my readers are prayer infants too and need to
learn to walk before they can run. So these are some lessons from one man’s
prayer kindergarten. Let’s “just do it” even if “it” is only crawling towards
God.
Note: Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College
and popular author of over 55 books.
In addition to your
planned Lenten reading, it may be worthwhile to add Matt Talbot
- A Lenten Journey (2014), a resource compiled and edited by Fr. Brian
Lawless, Vice Postulator for the cause of the Venerable Matt Talbot, and
Caroline Eaton.
Ds--distance, duality, disillusionment, denial, and despair.
Distance was to put up an unnecessary wall with others. Duality was that double
life where one wore masks and played the games. Disillusionment was to not find
satisfaction and to be afraid of one’s feelings and emotions where the only
thought was to be numb. Denial was to ignore a dilemma and to pretend it was not
there. Despair was to have no hope. But though it began this way it need not be
the end. To restore a connection, to come to patient acceptance, to pay mind to
those small joys often overlooked, to take off the mask, to be authentic and
without fear. Therein lies the solution and the hope. The Lord gave these words
to St. Faustina:
“O soul steeped in darkness, do not despair. All is not yet
lost. Come and confide in your God, who is love and
mercy.”
A Crisis
of Meaning and Identity
When
one begins to help others create meaning they will begin to create it
themselves. There cannot be something without there first being anything. And
from that void one does have a choice of what to fill it with. Will it be the
junk food that alleviates a hunger but never satisfies or will it be something
based on virtue which cannot be taken away and which provides nourishment? As
for where they will go, that too becomes a choice and the path will be less
tedious and more fulfilling when the journey takes place with others rather than
in isolation. When one walks alone, it is likely they will become lost and there
will be none to lift them up again or nurse wounds along the way.
Understanding Addiction
If one wishes to understand addiction they must be willing to
understand painful experiences. They must be willing to venture into that
darkness and realize that some are too afraid to walk to the light. Some judge
and fail to grasp how one may return to the same cycle. But it is the human
condition for us to return to that which was familiar though it is
uncomfortable. We must come to know those forces which led to a disintegration
of identity, a failure to grasp the meaning, an isolation though among others.
We must come to see that these persons are human beings regardless of how
contorted their lives have become. They cannot be expected to give what they
never had. Compassion and patience is a key. And once the door is opened we
cannot expect them to immediately rush into it. They need those who will guide
them to that opening and will encourage rather than further their feelings of
hopelessness and despair. A confrontational approach will only give rise to
retaliation, denial, and defensiveness. An approach of service and core human
values based on benevolence will give rise to the restoration of their full
humanity free from the contortions. Authenticity will give rise to honest
interactions. Supportive guidance rather than judgmental dictates will give rise
to functional independence and better decision making. Showing an example of
humility and kindness will give rise to one adopting the same. There is the need
for that process of unlearning, of casting off that which one perpetuated for it
is all they knew. There is that need to be willing to suffer with, be with, and
journey with the other, to demonstrate that there is no need any longer for
masks, roles, and ultimately fear. To show that life can be beautiful and
embraced rather than avoided.
Addiction and
Mental Health
There is often an unnecessary dichotomy made between addiction
and mental health. The two are intertwined in that it is often challenging
states of mind which paves the way to addiction and once addiction arises there
is then a greater deterioration of one’s mental state where for some the end
result is complete despair. It is necessary not only to support the person who
is in difficult emotional states whether addiction arose or not but to also take
on the role of activists to seek to change what we are able in the dynamics
which lead one to such states. And some may ask- why do some go through a
painful or difficult experience and addiction arises whereas with others it does
not? The fact is that all will react to oppressive dynamics, some will become
depressed, some anxious, some even psychotic. Some will develop an addiction.
Each is based on what is available (or not available) at the time. Each is an
ill-fated attempt to alleviate that which they find to be an unbearable
condition.
“God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness because
if we fully knew what was happening, and what Mystery, transformation, God, and
Grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or stop the
whole process.”
A Longing For Connection
Addiction becomes that strange event by which one longs for
connection but becomes disconnected and isolated, seeks meaning but enters
despair, yearns to be free from anxiety but becomes a prisoner of their own
thoughts, hopes to avoid pain but becomes engulfed in the unavoidable, seeks to
be recognized for something positive but becomes unrecognizable, goes after
pleasure and excitement but becomes apathetic and anhedonic. Addiction remains
that compulsion only when the dynamics around the person remain compulsively
chaotic and bewildering. The obsessive quality of addiction remains an obsession
when one believes there is no way out and has no other focus. And though
addiction was present, though the darkness has become pervasive, one may find
through that hope combined with realism that inward path where the light is
rekindled and one emerges anew with an insight, a connection, meaning, and a
willingness to embrace life as it is.
Spiritual Doubt
There was that time of spiritual doubt. One did those things
which killed the Spirit within. One replaces the Spirit with spirits. One does
not want to see, recognize, or be bothered by God for a time for they had
projected all their human resentments and negative feelings onto their image of
who this God was. One could not be in control if God was. And though things were
so out of control one played the game that they did have such control. When one
admitted that this was not the case and began to see the face and workings of
the Divine in their fellows, they began to discover amazing things and we
discarded spirits for the spiritual. It is not that some struggling with addiction do not want help.
They do not desire to live in despair and turmoil. It is rather they
have crossed the line into dependence and familiarity. It is that they are not
ready for they do not know how to receive help nor do they trust anyone to help.
Fear keeps them trapped in the cycle. A different way of life is foreign and
anxiety producing. Some would say we must give up on these souls but it is when
the door becomes cracked even just a tad that light may enter. The door can
only begin to be cracked open when the person encounters in another the very
traits they were lacking- patience, compassion, authenticity.
The Spiritual
There are those extreme idealists whose hearts may be benevolent
but whose thinking leads them to disillusionment, discontent, bitterness, and
cynicism. They desperately want to see their vision unfold. But it is that
attachment to this desire that leads to their confusion. Patient acceptance and
a hope tempered by realism are what is needed.There was that time of spiritual
doubt. One did those things which killed the Spirit within. One replaces the
Spirit with spirits. One does not want to see, recognize, or be bothered by
God for a time for they had projected all their human resentments and negative
feelings onto their image of who this God was. One could not be in control if
God was. And though things were so out of control one played the game that they
did have such control. When one admitted that this was not the case and began to
see the face and workings of the Divine in their fellows, they began to
discover amazing things and they discarded spirits for the spiritual.
So many families in this parish can thank God that even in hard
times, and in the face of many negative forces, they have seen their children
grow up to become good citizens, good Christians and good parents, people of
whom this parish can be proud.
The Parish of Seán McDermott Street in Dublin’s city centre, is
celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Salesian Order’s involvement
in the parish administration.
In addition to running Our Lady of Lourdes Church, which is home
to the Shrine of the Venerable Matt Talbot, the Salesians also run the Crinian
Youth Project, as a response to the disastrous impact of heroin on many of the
parish’s young people.
At a Mass marking the silver anniversary, the Salesian
provincial Fr Michael Casey was generous in praising others who are also working
to support the people of the parish, including the Daughters of Charity, the
Columban Missionary Sisters, the local schools, the local day centre for the
elderly, the parish’s pastoral council and those working in the local health
services.
But in his homily yesterday (Sunday), chief celebrant Archbishop
Diarmuid Martin remarked that there are three others ‘constantly present,
invisibly animating the spiritual and the human development of this community’.
The three are: Don Bosco, founder of the Salesians; Matt Talbot and Our Lady of
Lourdes.
“Don Bosco was a great saint of the people,” said the
Archbishop. “He worked within communities and especially with young people.
Anywhere in the world where you find a Salesian community you find a presence
among young people that is practical, caring, and forward-looking. I have
visited Salesian schools in the poorest parts of the world and the Salesian
presence is always one that provides practical help for young people, no matter
what their belief. The Spirit of Don Bosco is one that sets out to enable every
young person to reach his or her full God-given potential as individuals and to
build up a community that surrounds and helps young people.
“So many families here in this parish can thank God that even in
hard times, and in the face of many negative forces, they have seen their
children grow up to become good citizens and good Christians and good parents,
people of whom this parish can be proud.”
Describing Matt Talbot as ‘a true Dubliner, who faced the
challenges of Dublin in difficult times’, the Archbishop said, “He was a worker,
a very simple man who was able in the midst of poverty and disadvantage to be
truly a man of God, a mystic, and a man of prayer. He lived a saintly life not
by running way from his place of hard work and his difficult social environment.
He stayed here and found holiness here. Over the years, he has touched hearts
and he has answered the hidden prayers of many a parent or of individuals in
heart breaking situations of addiction. His presence here is truly a
blessing.
“The third figure is Our Lady of Lourdes, patron of this parish.
Mary is the model of a strong woman who sought out God’s will and stood by her
Son Jesus when his unfailing love was responded to with rejection and when his
goodness was responded to with shameful violence. Mary is the one who reminds us
of how the presence of goodness will eventually overcome the arrogance of the
violent.”
“The future of this parish and its people will be shaped not by
the drug barons but by the goodness and the determination of good honest and
courageous citizens, young and old, women and men, who care not for their own
wealth and power, but for the safe and happy future of our younger
generations. “May the Lord bless this parish and especially its young
people.”
Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the
Healing of
Addictions practiced
medicine and psychiatry for twenty-five years before becoming a senior fellow in
contemplative theology and psychology at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual
Formation in Bethesda, Maryland.
Addiction and Grace offers an inspiring and
hope–filled vision for those who desire to explore the mystery of who and what
they really are. May examines the "processes of attachment" that lead to
addiction and describes the relationship between addiction and spiritual
awareness. He also details the various addictions from which we can suffer, not
only to substances like alcohol and drugs, but to work, sex, performance,
responsibility, and intimacy.
Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist working with the
chemically dependent, May emphasizes that addiction represents an attempt to
assert complete control over our lives. Addiction and Grace is a compassionate
and wise treatment of a topic of major concern in these most addictive of times,
one that can provide a critical yet hopeful guide to a place of freedom based on
contemplative spirituality.”
NOTE: The cost of some canonisations is estimated to be as much as €500,000. The donation amount in the article will undoubtedly help finance Matt's cause.
From the moment Matt Talbot took the pledge
not to drink with a priest. Matt filled the void with God. The first three
months were very challenging but he persevered for the next forty one
years.
Every heart searches for meaning. Every soul longs for
happiness. We are born restless. We are born with a void inside, a missing
piece, which moves us to seek fulfillmen We are like a beautiful and complex
jigsaw puzzle with one missing piece. Without that last piece we remain
incomplete, so we tirelessly search for the piece that will complete the
picture.
We often attempt to place other appealing pieces which satisfy
temporarily but do not complete the puzzle correctly. These fleeting and
ultimately unsatisfying fillers may include materialism and vanity, drugs and
alcohol, hedonism and egotism to name a few. Though alluring and perhaps
temporarily successful in satisfying the inner restlessness, these vices rapidly
deepen the void within us.
No matter how many different pieces we use to fill that last
opening, there is only one, perfectly made piece that will fit flawlessly.
Saint Augustine accurately identified it when he wrote, “You have made us for
yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in
you.”
We are created by God with a natural need for Him to reach
personal fulfillment. We will remain restless, missing that last perfectly
fashioned puzzle piece, as long as we resist God. He has created us for Himself
and we need Him.
Some become so
restless they run away from God, yet it is in God that fulfillment is found.
Jesus urges us to turn to Him in our restlessness with His words, “come to me,
all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” He said to the
Samaritan woman at the well, “whoever drinks the water I shall give will never
thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up
to eternal life,” and she answered, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not
be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” In Christ alone our
thirst ends, our search concludes, and we move forward with purpose. \\
In God we find the fulfillment of every desire of our hearts.
It is in surrendering to Him that peace is found. It is in surrendering to Him
that He will place that perfectly fashioned piece into our hearts, completing
who we are. It is in Him that the restlessness of seeking dissolves into the
happiness and fulfillment of having found Him. May the new year allow us to
grow closer to Christ, enabling Him to place the perfectly fashioned puzzle
piece that will fill us with peace and joy.
Difficult circumstances seem to make the Eucharist all the more
powerful.
"...Earlier this year, I interviewed some
homeless and formerly homeless people for America magazine. Two of the Catholic
interviewees described the way their experience with homelessness drew them to
the Eucharist. Greg C said that when he was living in his car, he sought out
churches “that had 24-hour Adoration, so it wouldn’t be suspicious that I had my
car there… Going to Adoration felt like coming home, even though it’s not where
I slept.”
Eleanor (a pseudonym) noted that she became
Catholic in part because: “Having been so totally and utterly failed,
misunderstood and maligned by 99 per cent of the people I loved – Evangelical
Protestants and Catholics alike – I really just wanted Jesus. The Eucharist was
suddenly that much more necessary and beautiful.”
The Third Sunday of Advent’s readings
emphasise that God comes to the powerless and the suffering. He will overturn
the hierarchies of our world: “He has filled the hungry with good things, and
the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1:53).
I have only anecdotal evidence to suggest
that people on the margins of society often have an especial devotion to the
Eucharist. I do think there’s something about the experience of marginalisation
or powerlessness itself – an experience most of us have had in different
contexts – which makes the poignancy and majesty of Christ’s gift of Himself in
the Eucharist shine forth more brightly. Eleanor suggests that the Eucharist
helps us to know and love Jesus even when many of His followers abandon or harm
us.
One other theme my interviewees raised was
the fear of how others would see them – alongside the terrible fear of becoming
totally invisible. One man, John William Brandkamp, summarised what many of my
interviewees said in different words: “I desperately want to be seen, and I
desperately do not want to be seen.” In this situation Eucharistic Adoration
allows you to turn your gaze towards Christ and know that He sees you without
judging you. You don’t have to worry about what He’s thinking about you. You
don’t have to worry that He’ll discreetly edge away from you if you look rough
or miserable, if you are a more butch woman or a more feminine man.
There is a peace in the Eucharist which is
for you, an intimacy even when you feel friendless. He knows you when you are
keeping secrets for fear of how others will react to you; knows you, with a
knowledge which is only loving.
The Eucharist shows God Himself in a
shockingly powerless form. Not only does God overthrow the mighty and exalt the
humble – He Himself becomes about as humble as it’s possible to be. His Body is
as broken as our heart feels. He places Himself literally in our hands,
entrusting Himself to us even though we know we are not trustworthy. It is His
might which makes this possible. It is the infinite power of the Lord which
makes it possible for Him to become, like us, so weak.
And it is only through His power that we can
do as Paul says: “In all circumstances give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Eucharist means “thanksgiving”, of course. In our hardest circumstances we are
given such a simple way to give thanks. There are times when words fail, when
prayers don’t come, when you have no idea how to live in gratitude for a life
which seems consumed by confusion, injustice or suffering. In those times the
silence of the Eucharist can be a great solace. Simply being present with Him is
enough.
There have been times when I couldn’t receive
Communion – sometimes for dumb reasons, like my schedule went all catawampus and
I didn’t fast; sometimes because I knew I carried grave sin I was unwilling even
to bring to Confession. It’s awful to feel helplessly shackled in
sin.
But I trust that when I went to Mass my
willingness simply to be in His presence, even if I couldn’t or wouldn’t receive
the deep intimacy He wanted to offer me, was a way of giving as much thanks as I
could.
In all circumstances our Thanksgiving awaits
us on the altar."
"...Venerable Matt Talbot provides an example of someone who used
asceticism to help him on his journey from addiction to wholeness. Born into a
large family, Talbot lived in poverty-stricken, post-famine Ireland. He began
work at age 12, and that's when a soul-consuming alcoholism took
root.
At the age of 28, Talbot, with the help of a confessor (and the
Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius!) began his journey of sobriety. His
abstinence was accompanied by a radical conversion. A laborer and a union man,
he joined the Secular Franciscan Order, gave up another addiction -- smoking --
and began to lead his ordinary life with extraordinary penance and
self-sacrifice.
Talbot is at the second rung of a four-step ladder to
canonization. A miracle attributed to his intercession could lead to him being
declared "Blessed." But in the meantime, thousands believe he has helped them in
their struggle with addiction.
All of us are attached to something that impedes spiritual
growth. During Lent, fasting from a behavior -- drinking, gossiping, addictive
screen time -- that interferes with our relationship with Jesus can lead to
conversion. An attribute of Talbot was that people described him, despite his
self-denial, as a very happy man..."
This informative video, published on Sep 16,
2017, features multiple speakers.
"Theme of documentary- The amount of families in Ireland and every other country in
the world who are afflicted by an addiction of one sort or another is very high,
and addiction more than anything else, destroys families. Many families have
lived tortured lives because what do you do when a member of your family gets
addicted to alcohol or drugs? The alcoholic or addict usually ends up going t o
any lengths to feed their addiction, to the detriment of the wider family.
Where
do people in such an awful scenario go for help? What do they do? When many of
them hear about the inspirational story of Matt Talbot and how he overcame his
chronic alcoholism, they’re inspired and encouraged to try and overcome their
addiction and begin the difficult journey from darkness to light. Matt Talbot is
nowadays the number one patron for countless people all over the world who are
suffering from addiction and are struggling to find recovery.
This 50-minute radio documentary investigates: (a)[ Matt
Talbot’s inspirational life-example and why his story resonates so strongly with
our modern world; and (b). the huge interest nowadays in Matt Talbot in Ireland
and abroad. More than anything else, this documentary aims to highlight Matt
Talbot’s story of redemption and hope, and in so doing perhaps inspire any
listener who’s suffering from addiction, or knows someone suffering from
addiction, to follow his example of walking the difficult (but worthwhile) path
from addiction to recovery. *
This 50-minute radio documentary is to be
downloaded for non-profit purposes only, in adherence with the universal truth-
“What you do for yourself dies with you, what you do for others remains. It is
immortal.”
Writing on the British Jesuits’ site Thinking Faith,
Hedwig Lewis, SJ, gives more
background on the devotion to Mary the Untier (or Undoer) of Knots,
which Pope Francis has promoted for years. You can also visit a
website about the devotion. The
devotion is especially appropriate for “problems and struggles we face for which
we do not see any solution:”
Knots of
discord in our family, lack of understanding between parents and children,
disrespect, violence, the knots of deep hurts between husband and wife, the
absence of peace and joy at home. They are also the knots of anguish and despair
of separated couples, the dissolution of the family, the knots of a drug addict
son or daughter, sick or separated from home or God, knots of alcoholism, the
practice of abortion, depression, unemployment, fear, solitude. .
.
- See more at:
http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/16382/mary-unties-knots/#sthas
As readers of biographical articles and books
about Venerable Matt Talbot are quite aware, Matt developed a deep devotion to
the Blessed Mother from the time of signing the pledge to give up alcohol
through his remaining forty-one years of life.
