The God-Shaped Hole in the Human Soul

January 2006

Glenn F. Chesnut*

Metaphors as signposts of the spirit

Ancient marker stones in Ireland pointing our eyes to the place
where the sunlight of the spirit breaks out over the peak of the dark hill
and illumines our lives with the promise of new life and hope.

The idea of a "God-shaped hole" in the human heart, a terrifying bottomless abyss opening up inside us which we would do anything to fill, is a famous modern metaphor for the yearning in the human soul which drives us on our spiritual quest. This is a modern paraphrase of something the famous philosopher and mathematician Pascal (1623-1662) wrote in his Pensees (10.148):¹

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.

When Pascal wrote this, he was probably thinking, in part, of a famous passage at the beginning of Augustine's Confessions (1.1.1), where the great African saint said to God, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are rest-less till they find their rest in you." And Augustine went on to say that he wanted to ask God to come and dwell in him, but that he was not sure what it was that he was actually asking for when he prayed to God in that fashion (1.2.2):²

What place is there in me to which my God can come, what place that can receive the God who made heaven and earth? Does this mean, O Lord my God, that there is in me something fit to contain you? ... Or, since nothing that exists could exist without you, does this mean that whatever exists does, in this sense, contain you? If this is so, since I too exist, why do I ask you to come into me? For I should not be there at all unless, in this way, you were already present within me.

Augustine raises an interesting question. Since God is everywhere at all times and all places, what could it mean to ask him to come into my heart and still my tormenting, restless discontent, since in some way God must already be there? I could not exist at all unless God's power was already there holding me in existence.

For when we speak of God as the Creator (the ground of being), we do not mean to refer only to that event at the beginning of time when God first brought this universe into existence. Modern physicists call that event "the Big Bang," when space and time, and all the energy and matter in the universe came into existence all at once, out of that mysterious reality which was there before, but which our mathematical equations cannot describe.³ But God, this mysterious reality which is the eternal ground of all existence, was there for infinite times before the Big Bang, and continues to be there after the Big Bang, as that upon which the existence of everything else depends, such that if God were not there underneath at all times, the universe and everything in it would instantly blink out of existence on the spot.

I am held in existence by God, in a universe where God�s power and glory are everywhere, both inside me and outside me, so that God is always already here.

And yet Augustine knows that the prayer which he is praying is the right one. He knows that what he longs for more than anything else is (1.5.5) "the gift of your coming into my heart and filling it to the brim, so that I may forget all the wrong that I have done and embrace you alone, my only source of good." So he prays (1.5.6):

The house of my soul is too small for you to come in to me; let it be enlarged by you. It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it. It contains much that you will not be pleased to see; this I confess to you and do not hide it. I do not quarrel with you about your judgments, for you are Truth Itself; and I have not wished to be dishonest with myself, or it would be my wrongdoing lying to itself.

And in that last sentence, we see the partial answer to his question, in a theme which recurs over and over in the Confessions. We encounter God above all as Truth Itself, as that moment of insight in which God's grace opens our eyes to some important truth about ourselves and God and the world, which enables our souls to be healed and our lives remade in finer and better form.⁴

So what I am actually praying for, is for God in his grace to open my eyes so that I can become aware of his presence. Developing a real God-consciousness in my heart and mind is the way that I will find rest and peace. In fact God was already here with me and always was with me -- but I was not consciously aware of it. The way my restless heart finds rest and peace from its troubles and torments is to become aware of the great central Truth which is the most important truth of all: God's light and grace and eternal holy presence is here with me. He is right here within my heart, where my knowledge of his presence will give me all the strength I need to deal with anything. And he is also everywhere outside me, where I can see his eternal glory shining all around me, which means that I can let go and let him take care of me and everything else that is driving me to desperation.

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Pascal made an interesting comment about this longing for God in the passage which we quoted above: "What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?" This seems an odd sort of thing to say, for most modern people. What is going on here? We are probably seeing an echo of an important spiritual tradition which went back even earlier than Augustine. It was presented in one of its classic formulations in the form of a "Platonic myth" created by the great third-century Christian theologian Origen.⁵ This author was an Egyptian; his name means Horus Born, that is, child of the hawk-headed Egyptian god Horus. A Platonic myth means a symbolic and metaphorical tale like the ones which Plato loved to tell in order to make important points, like the Myth of Er and the Parable of the Cave in his Republic. These were stories which you certainly could not take literally. But if you thought carefully about what these tales was saying, you could get a grasp of something of upmost importance about the nature of life and the world.⁶

In Origen's myth, at the beginning of all things, long before the creation of this present physical universe, God created a number of spirits. They spent their lives in the heavenly realm, with their eyes turned continually toward the vision of the glory of the sacred divine presence, so that they dwelt continually in the sunlight of the spirit.

But then some of these spirits began to rebel and turn away from the Vision of God,⁷ and finally there was war in heaven. When the battle was over, those spirits who had sinned the most were turned by God into demons and cast down into hell, where the fallen angel Lucifer ruled over them. Those spirits who had sided with God for the most part, although not perfectly, were allowed to become angels, and were allowed to continue to dwell in the heavenly realms.

Origen said that for those spirits who had sinned too much to become angels, but had not sinned enough to become demons, God created the present physical universe as a kind of reform school, and sent their spirits down to the planet Earth to live, where hopefully they would learn how to reform their ways. That is what we human beings are -- immortal spirits imprisoned within material corruptible bodies -- spirits who were not malicious and evil enough to have become genuine devils in their previous existence, but who fell far short of acting like angels.

We cannot usually truly remember much about our previous heavenly existence, during the period before we were born into our present material bodies here on earth. But like a dream which we can halfway recall the next day, as Pascal put it, "what else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in human beings a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?" Somehow we halfway remember that our lives should not be racked with such resentment and fear, and that somehow or other we have lost something which we used to have, or ought to have. And that which we have lost is of course the Vision of God which we once enjoyed before the great war in heaven arose and we turned away from that awareness of God's presence, and shut our eyes to the sunlight of the spirit.

In Origen's myth, there was only one totally unfallen spirit, only one of God's beloved children, who did not turn away from him in the slightest, and kept his eyes locked continually upon the Vision of God. This spirit lived continually with a perfect God-consciousness, always retaining an awareness of the divine presence. Since Origen was a Christian, he said that this one unfallen spirit was the human soul of Jesus Christ. Christ was appointed by God to serve as the God-bearer, and sent down to Earth, where he was clothed in a physical body just like the poor human beings living down there in prison, to show those human beings the way back to the Vision of God which would save them and allow them to return at death to that heavenly home from which they had been exiled.

Origen was one of the most influential teachers of early Christianity, as influential in Eastern Orthodox Christianity as Augustine was in western Roman Catholic and later Protestant Christianity, but he was not always the most orthodox of theologians! One can see a number of Egyptian-style gnostic elements intermixed in his thoughts.⁸

The gnostics believed in a doctrine of the transmigration of souls, an idea which they had borrowed from Greek philosophy, from the Platonists and Pythagoreans.⁹ Origen likewise believed in a sort of transmigration of souls, where our spirits would go at death to the realm most appropriate to the amount of spiritual growth (or the reverse) which we had accomplished. We could end up in our next life down in hell with the demons, or up in heaven with the angels, or back here on earth again for another try at reforming us.

But since the power of God's love, Origen believed, was so great that nothing eventually could withstand its healing power, by the end of time, all of God's creatures would eventually be saved in what he called the consummation of all things (the apokatastasis pantôn, see Acts 3:21), when even Lucifer himself would once more be restored to his original role. For Lucifer means Light Bearer, and he had once been second only to Jesus Christ himself in the heavenly realm. At the end of time, even he, the chief of the demons, would once more wear a snowy robe, and be the loving bearer of enlightenment instead of the hate-filled Prince of Darkness.

In the modern world, Dostoyevski refers to this part of the story -- the ultimate salvation of Satan at the consummation of all things -- in The Brothers Karamazov, for the Russian novelist took that part of the Origenist myth quite seriously. No one -- not even the Prince of Darkness -- will be condemned to hell forever, and at the end of time, God will be all in all, and the Kingdom of Peace and Love will once more be home to all of God's beloved children. No one will be left out, and God will wipe away every tear.

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So the modern metaphor of the God-shaped hole in the middle of the human soul had a long prehistory, which went back to some of the most formative thinkers of the ancient world. How can we "demythologize" or "deconstruct" this ancient tale, and put it in modern language?

Augustine helps point us in the right direction. Where is the preexistent world of the Platonic myths, the world where our souls lived before they were incarnated in our present mode of life? In the memory banks of our brains, Augustine said, particularly in those parts of the mind where the most deeply buried memories are stored, which we call the subconscious. That is what the mythical language was actually symbolizing, he believed, when it spoke of a lost transcendent world of mystery and awareness of the primordial truths.

We have to go back into the land of memory to find the truth. When Ebby visited Bill Wilson in his kitchen, Bill at first tried to counter what Ebby was telling him about the spiritual awakening which had freed him from alcohol, by reciting all his own most skeptical and cynical antireligious arguments. But in spite of himself, Bill was plunged into a trip back into long forgotten memories of encounters he had had with the spiritual dimension of reality, both as a child and as a young man, which he had regarded as unimportant and irrelevant at the time (Big Book pp. 10 and 12-13). And above all he remembered his awareness of the sacred and of the divine presence which he had felt when he entered Winchester Cathedral as a young military officer during the First World War. That turned out to be the key buried memory. To make sure that his readers realized how important it was, Bill Wilson introduced that motif on the very first page of the Big Book, at the very beginning of the story.

But that was linked to additional memories, where Bill also remembered "the sound of the preacher's voice" as he sat as a child on a hillside at a great distance from the little New England Protestant church where he lived. This trip into the past was a journey back into feelings, not words and theories, because he could not make out the actual words themselves which the preacher was speaking, nor was he thinking about the preacher's theological theories and the doctrines he was expounding. What the little boy was aware of however was that the man in the church was talking about things which he recognized to be sacred things.

Bill remember his grandfather too, a man for whom he had great honor and respect, who showed him that the awe and wonder that you felt when you gazed up into the starry heavens at night was equally much a feeling of the sacred, and an experience of the sacred, his grandfather reminded him, where the preacher in the church could not tell you what you were supposed to believe about it.

The ancient theologian Origen was a Christian, so his way of explaining things could only have one true God-bearer, and that one had to be sinless and perfect. From the very beginning, the early AA people discovered however that the Father of Light sends us many God-bearers, all of them vessels of clay, and many of them very far indeed from being perfect. God had used even poor Ebby, who never could stay sober for very long, as the God-bearer whose job was to open Bill Wilson's eyes at the beginning. Bill's grandfather had been a God-bearer too, and even though Bill had not realized this as a child, the memory of his grandfather was finally allowed to speak (in his long dead grandfather's behalf) another vital part of the message God needed to communicate to Bill.

We all have memories somewhere of a few encounters at the very least with a sacred realm, where we got at least a tiny touch of awe and wonder, and also somehow a fleeting taste of peace and reassurance. This is where the Truth lies, the moment of insight which Augustine said could bring God into the little house of my soul as a conscious presence, repairing the broken plaster and leaky roof, and scrubbing the floors, and expanding and enlarging the dark and filthy little hovel in which I had been living, until it became a mighty mansion shining from every window with the light of the divine presence within.

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The God-shaped hole in the human heart is in fact an infinite and terrifying abyss, Pascal said, which I try to cover over with all sorts of false facades. But then a crack appears in the facade, and I see through it the well of eternal nothingness plunging down forever, and I hurl myself back in total horror. Only that which is infinite and completely transcendent, Pascal said, could fill such an abyss.

Can I pour alcohol through the crack in the facade and fill the primordial abyss of nonbeing and remove the unbearable terror? This does not work for very long. Sigmund Freud said in Civilization and Its Discontents that no mood-altering chemicals ultimately perform this job satisfactorily. For a while Freud thought that cocaine could safely do this, and had to learn the hard way, through his own personal experience, that in the long run it worked no better than alcohol.

Can I fill the primordial abyss with the adrenaline surge of gambling or other thrill seeking, or the trance-like state of the sex addict searching for his or her next release? This does not work for very long either, and likewise leads us down a path of personal destruction. I cannot fill the void which looms below with compulsive caretaking and rescuing, or by fanatically following rigid religious rules. I cannot fill the hole with food, or compulsive spending.

I cannot cover over the abyss forever by intellectualizing everything and trying to think "logically" and "scientifically" at all times, and denying that the infinite void is even there at all, for this is also a flight into fantasy. Beware of people who talk too much about being "realists," for they are the ones whose fantasies are the most naive of all! I have seen this kind of attempt to paper over the abyss be ripped to shreds too many times. The antireligious psychologist suddenly discovers that he has fatal liver cancer. The skeptical philosopher's wife suddenly announces that she is filing for divorce and taking the children and the house (and everything else) with her. The cynical historian's child is run over and killed in an automobile accident. The rationalistic physicist suddenly realizes that the government is using his discoveries to build bombs which are poised in missiles and aircraft and submarines all over the globe, and that one false move in a quarrel currently going on over a small island or a tiny peninsula is at the point of precipitating decisions which will kill all or most of the entire human race.

We cannot ultimately flee from the vision of this abyss of nothingness, or paper it over, or fill it up with food or alcohol or drugs, or keep ourselves perpetually so busy and preoccupied that we will never have to look down into it.

There is something however which can in fact fill the infinite void and turn it into a realm of light, and it is already there, and the knowledge of it is already in our memories -- but it is buried away so deep, that we have forgotten what it is, so that "all that now remains" at the conscious level, Pascal said, "is the empty print and trace." It is but the ghost of a memory which therefore gives us no peace, but only haunts us with the dim awareness that our lives somehow should not be sunk in this horrible anxiety and misery. Ironically, we come to fear this ghost memory of the light which would save us, just as much as we fear the abyss of darkness which opens up beneath us.

We can try to use the same tricks to chase away this ghost, which we tried to use to veil our view of the abyss which yawns below: alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, caretaking and rescuing, eating, spending, throwing ourselves into fanatical religion-oholism, or allowing ourselves to be possessed by the control neurosis of the intellectualizers and rationalizers who believe that if we can just come up with the right "scientific" theories we can keep the ghost out of our bedrooms at night.

But the ghost of the God of whose presence my subconscious is already aware still comes back to haunt me, just as the facade I try to erect over the abyss of nothingness keeps on developing cracks in it. I fall into denial and fleeing, and spend half of my time trying to pretend that the infinite hole in my soul is not there, and the other half of the time trying to pretend that the God whose light and comfort would fill that hole does not exist either.

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In the ancient world, human beings were often described as beings who had what we would call today the souls of angels and the bodies of monkeys. But the angel and the monkey have to learn how to respect one another and care for one another and love one another, if we are going to have a healthy spirituality. We will just make ourselves miserable and accomplish nothing worthwhile if the monkey tries to pretend that the angel is only an illusion, or if the angel believes that it will become more "spiritual" by grossly mistreating the monkey.

For most of the past two thousand years, the western world has tended to fall more often into the latter misunderstanding of spirituality. In century after century, people were praised for doing insane things in the name of religion. Those terrible French "saints" from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, like Madame Guyon for example, who contracted smallpox and then deliberately spread the infected areas to her face so that she could destroy her beauty with dreadful scars, along with the religious fanatics who wore haircloth undergarments and chains around their waists and slept on the stone floors of churches,¹⁰ were praised as great religious heroes who attained the greatest heights of spirituality by punishing their poor bodies in every way they could imagine, but were in fact people obsessed with a neurotic and perverted self-hatred.

The angel and the monkey are both important, each in its own way, and both have their rights. Good parents do not praise their children for deliberately pulling out their hair or cutting themselves with knives -- we regard children like that as deeply disturbed and send them to psychiatrists -- so how could a good and loving God take delight in that kind of mental disorder?

Can alcoholism be arrested through continual punishment of the body? The Irishman Matt Talbot sometimes held up as an example. He was an alcoholic who had been destroying himself through drink, and he had been doing it for years, not caring that he was killing himself. But then he had something like a conversion experience, and was able to stop his drinking by fasting every day, sleeping on a plank, allowing himself only four or five hours sleep a night, and engaging in other austerities. He went to mass every morning before going to work as a laborer in a lumber yard, and spent half of every Sunday in church. When he dropped dead on a Dublin street in 1925, they found three chains embedded in his flesh: one wrapped around his waist, another around an arm, and the third around one leg. He died sober, but this looks very much like simply the substitution of one kind of self-hatred by another.

This is the dark side of ancient gnosticism, which was supposedly suppressed within the Christian church by the fourth century, but which simply went underground at that point, and has continued to crop out in Christian practice over and over again through all the succeeding centuries. Gnosticism tells us that if the spiritual world is good, and the material world is evil, then the path to salvation necessarily entails denying and punishing our bodies and fleeing from any kind of pleasure of any sort, while simultaneously deliberately inflicting pain on ourselves. We dare not sleep in a bed that does not make our bones ache, we become afraid to eat even simple food unless its taste is unpleasant, and we work continually to take every single bit of joy and delight out of our lives, all in the name of "spirituality." For our bodies and our pleasures are all part of the material world, which gnosticism has defined as the ultimate evil.

In a good spirituality, the angel cannot be allowed to do that to the monkey, because an angel who does that sort of thing to any living creature -- taking a sick pleasure out of keeping it in continual pain -- is no longer an angel but a demon.

In a healthy spirituality, some sort of balance must be maintained between our spiritual needs and our physical needs. That is the principle which structures both the Rule of St. Benedict and the chapter on the Fourth Step in Bill Wilson's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

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Corresponding to those two levels of human cares and concerns, it was believed in the ancient world that there were two different dimensions of being, the sacred and the profane.¹¹ Up above lies the realm of the transcendent, and down below lies the realm of physical nature. By "profane" we do not mean that which is obscene or sacrilegious, but that which is pro fanum. The fanum in ancient Latin meant the place consecrated to a god, including both the temple and the land around it. When you stand inside the boundaries of the fanum, you are standing on holy ground. That which is pro fanum on the other hand, is that which is situated in the ordinary world lying outside the fence or wall which guards the consecrated grounds.

Some beings are constructed in such a way that they are able to dwell continually in the transcendent world. Jews, Christians, and Muslims call these beings angels. Ancient pagan Greeks and Romans called them gods. Other beings are constructed in such a way that they can live only within the realm of the physical and material world: earthworms, trout, frogs, trees, and so on. They do not feel this as a hardship, because they cannot even imagine any higher kind of existence.

Human beings are constructed however in a way where they live partly in one of these realms and partly in the other. This is an extremely difficult kind of existence. The ancient Christian texts say that those human beings who truly work out how to live in both of those worlds satisfactorily will find, when they go to the eternal realm, that the angels will be falling down before them and singing songs of praise, and that these highest human souls will be regarded in heaven as superior in rank even to the greatest of the angels. That is how difficult the human task is.

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St. Thomas Aquinas¹² in the thirteenth century attempted to deal with the twofold nature of human existence by following the principle that "grace does not destroy nature but perfects it." So when he talked about human psychology, he accepted the fact that there was a natural realm where one could discuss psychological problems (and how to heal them) without bringing in any sort of spiritual issues. The four natural virtues gave us a description of a psychologically healthy person in totally secular terms.

Prudence referred to learning how to think before we spoke or acted, instead of just lashing out with our first impulse. It dealt with learning greater ego control, and learning to become aware that our actions always had consequences.

Temperance referred to learning how to tolerate the ordinary discomforts of life, and learning about delayed gratification. Trying to operate continually on the childish principle of "I want what I want and I want it now" was a recipe for disaster. Both in the family and on the job, I had to learn that there were some tasks I had to do which were hard work and sometimes unpleasant, and I had to learn how to compromise on some of my desires.

Fortitude referred to learning how to stand up for myself, for I need to learn how to set proper boundaries and act assertively to protect myself against people who are attempting to transgress those boundaries. Fortitude was linked to building up both my self-esteem and my basic survival instinct. In cases of "fight or flight," my best hope of survival sometimes lay in summoning the courage to fight.

Justice referred to learning certain fundamental principles of fair play in my dealings with other human beings. Marriage counselors spend a lot of their time trying to teach husbands and wives to play fair with one another, and to respect the fact that my spouse also has rights.

In addition to these four secular virtues, Aquinas said, there were also three spiritual virtues: faith, hope, and love. Working on the principle that "grace does not destroy nature but perfects it," he made it clear that even the most deeply spiritual people still had to practice prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Even if their hearts were overflowing with the gifts of grace, they still had to think before acting, and tolerate necessary discomforts and delayed gratification, and stand up for themselves and set boundaries, and play fair. And on the other side, grace certainly does not allow people to lie, cheat, steal, be cowardly, complain about everything that does not go their way, scream at other people, and wallow in neurotic fantasy.

Grace -- which gave us faith, hope, and love -- did not destroy our natural instincts and virtues, but added "something extra" to our lives, that made them even better and more satisfying.

Faith meant learning to trust the fundamental goodness of reality, which has its own kind of innate goodness, because coming to know the truth about my life and the universe (no matter how frightening it seems at first) will ultimately be healing for me. Faith meant learning the kind of existential courage which allows me to look down into the infinite abyss which Pascal talked about, without fleeing into denial and escapism. It meant developing the bravery to venture into the unknown. Psychotherapy will not work without that kind of faith.

Hope meant a willingness to look beyond the torn and tattered shape of my life at present, and see the possibility of healing and the restoration of wholeness. It meant learning that there are situations which look hopeless, which can nevertheless be changed in ways that will bring new life. Psychotherapy will not work until despair can be replaced with that kind of hope.

Love meant developing something worthwhile to desire and want and care about. The desire to flee from pain may drive me into psychotherapy, but I will not start getting well until I recover some of my ability to lieben und arbeiten (to use Freud's words), the ability "to love and work." That means the capacity to form intimate and caring human relations, and it also means that I must develop things I can do where I can feel that my life is useful, or at least satisfying and worthwhile. That is the ultimate goal of good psychotherapy.

Now the very best secular psychotherapists always "cheat" as it were, because although they claim that they are only practicing a secular variety of psychotherapy, they understand the importance of the spiritual values of faith, hope, and love, and so they in fact try to teach their patients how to live life in that higher kind of way. But these are actually not secular values, and they cannot be "proved" to exist by scientific reasoning, so in fact this is no longer a truly secular psychotherapy any longer. So why do the very best therapists do it anyway? Because they are good men and women, who know that these spiritual values "perfect" our secular lives by bringing them to their highest possibilities.

The very best secular psychotherapy smuggles the spiritual element in surreptitiously, and thereby gives patients a little bit more than they would have had otherwise. What the founders of the twelve step movement discovered was that when we come out totally in the open about this spiritual dimension, even more psychological healing takes place, and it takes place far more quickly and easily.

It is an inescapable fact that, for human beings to feel that their lives are truly satisfying and worthwhile, they are going to have to develop faith, hope, and love in the sense described above. Admitting openly that this is what we are doing is the easiest and best way to do this, for there are techniques of prayer and meditation which do more to help growth in this area of human life than anything else we can do. And there really is no way to tell people to take up prayer and meditation without admitting that we are teaching them about spirituality!

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Let me try a metaphor of my own to perhaps illustrate a little more clearly, the twofold nature of human life, a metaphor which describes in a slightly different way both the human problem and its solution. Let us imagine a bird with a broken wing. There are two kinds of therapy we could practice on this wounded bird. We could try to teach the bird how to live as successfully as possible on the ground. Or we could heal the bird's wing and teach it to fly again.

One kind of secular psychology attempts to treat the bird with the broken wing by teaching it strategies for foraging around on the ground for fallen seeds, and coping as best it can with an earthbound life. Even in Alcoholics Anonymous, regretfully enough, one can find members who have gone years without a drink, but who are still crippled spiritually. When you see someone with ten or twenty or more years in the program, who is still going around angry all the time, and starting continual fights and arguments, and bullying people -- or someone who collapses into depression and despair and feelings of total worthlessness on a frequent basis -- we are dealing with someone who has refused to carry out the full spiritual work of the program.

We can even imagine groups of birds with broken wings, gathering together and gazing up into the sky at the birds who are flying around freely and joyfully, and criticizing them as dreamers and fools and people who refuse to think scientifically and take responsibility, and as people who are just "fleeing from reality." There is however always a bitterness of some sort in the wounded birds who form these little groups of naysayers, because as Pascal said, "there was once in them a true happiness," even if "all that now remains is the empty print and trace" of a buried memory of the time, back in the forgotten past, when they too knew how to fly.

A good twelve step program takes wounded birds and uses a totally different kind of therapy on them. It heals their broken wings and teaches them to fly again. Once these little birds learn how to soar through the heavens again, it is only rarely that any are driven back to alcohol or drugs.

Chemical substances like alcohol and drugs (including the psychoactive medications used by psychiatrists) can make us feel as though we were flying. But real flying is always better than pretend flying. Taking a drug which makes me feel as though I were coping with the problems of my life effectively, does no great amount of good in the long run unless I am given help in learning how to actually cope with the problems of my life effectively. Antidepressants and antipsychotics and other medications of this sort can be life savers, but if at all possible, they should be combined with the kind of therapy which teaches us better ways of dealing with life.

I am well aware that with some mental patients, all we can do is medicate them, just as with some medical patients, all we can do is give them pain killers until they finally die. But I am talking here about what our goal should be in situations where we can do more than simply dope people up.

If we can teach the wounded bird to fly again, even just a little bit, this is the most precious gift we can give that injured creature. If we can take people in the twelve step program and teach them even just a little bit about real spirituality, it will enormously help all their other psychological symptoms.

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In A.A. meetings in northern Indiana in the old days, the members sometimes referred to non-members as the "earth people." There was a bit of self-deprecating humor in that little phrase. Alcoholics, even after years in recovery, react so differently to the world around them, that they sometimes have trouble even beginning to comprehend the cares and worries and logic of the non-alcoholics among whom they live. They often feel like aliens from outer space, dumped down on a planet called Earth, where the local inhabitants have customs and thought processes which are so totally incomprehensible, that they often feel lost and totally out of touch with what is going on. So they laugh, because there is nothing they can do about this, and because they realize that even people who feel like space aliens can learn to have a good time and enjoy their lives.

But there was a deeper level of meaning to that little phrase, which was not humorous at all. Some of these other people, the "earth people" who acted in such strange ways, were what the ancient world called the chthonic race, those who were locked to the earth and could never rise above it. The spiritual masters of the twelve step program were, in contrast, the "people of heaven," those who could live and move freely in the transcendent realm.

There are those who brag that they "have no God-shaped hole in the middle of their souls," thank you very much, and regard any talk of spiritual awareness as fantasy and self-delusion. This raises the interesting question of whether these unfortunates are "earth people" in the ultimate and irredeemable sense. Some of the ancient gnostics of the second and third century said that there were such pitiful souls, which were doomed to remain forever enchained in the cycle of birth and rebirth. John Calvin likewise in the sixteenth century believed that there were those who were predestined to live forever locked out of the kingdom of light. Friedrich Nietzsche in the nineteenth century also made a clear distinction between those human beings who had the existential courage to gaze into the abyss of nonbeing (who could therefore learn to take responsibility for their own lives and live authentically), and those who had no more higher spiritual awareness than sheep or cattle.

Bill Wilson in the twentieth century similarly declared that there were those who could not follow the twelve step path to higher spiritual awakening, and he stated it in predestinarian language: they could never do it, and there was nothing anyone could do to help them, because "they seem to have been born that way." But he gave an interesting twist to this old idea, because he did not say that it was because their minds were too dense or because they were in fact lacking in the ability to be aware of spiritual realities or because God refused to send them grace, but because they were "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves."¹³ This is a good Augustinian approach, for we remember how Augustine referred to God as "Truth Itself" in that passage in the Confessions which we quoted above, and then went on to say, "I have not wished to be dishonest with myself, or it would be my wrongdoing lying to itself." In other words, both Augustine and Bill W. were talking about what Jean Paul Sartre called mauvaise foi, the kind of self-deception in which my lies lie even to themselves.

There are some "earth people," Bill W. said, who would never find spiritual enlightenment because their lives were a tissue of alibis and excuses and refusal to face the reality of their own existences, and their thought processes were an endless series of tricks and rationalizations to "explain away" every instance in which a tiny ray of the sunlight of the spirit attempted to shine into the darkness of their hearts.

The spiritual masters of the twelve steps were, in contrast to these doomed souls, the "people of heaven." They could fly on the winged chariot of the soul described in the great myth in Plato's Phaedrus, where learning to control the chariot means learning the correct balance between the three parts of the soul which are involved: intellectual thought (the rational ego), the natural instinct of anger and aggression, and the natural instinct which makes us desire physical pleasure and entertainment and relaxation. A very difficult vessel to learn how to maneuver and fly successfully, because it can only move smoothly and swiftly when its three parts have a just and right relationship between themselves (called dikaiosunê in Plato's Greek).¹⁴ But once having mastered the winged chariot of the soul, these spiritual masters could ascend at will into the eternal realm of the sunlight of the spirit.

________________________

Pascal and Augustine and Bill Wilson, and those other great spiritual masters of the past, were not just posing curious intellectual puzzles for us to toy over and talk about. They were trying to confront us with a decision which we have to make. There are two different directions we can go, two different kinds of people we can become, two different kinds of destiny at which we can arrive.

So which do we wish to be? Earth people, or the masters of the winged chariot? Do we wish to continue pretending that the yearnings of our souls are imagination and nonsense? Or do we want to learn how to soar up into the eternal sunlight once again?

Let us remember what Pascal observed: if this desire to feel the sunlight of the spirit penetrating down into our hearts is fantasy and illusion and could never be carried out in reality, then why is it that there is a place down at the bottom of our souls where we remember actually having experienced it before?



__________________________________________

© Copyright 2005 by Glenn F. Chesnut. From the Hindsfoot Foundation website at http://hindsfoot.org/ This material may be copied and reproduced by others subject to the restrictions given at http://hindsfoot.org/copyright.html

SOURCE: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:X6Kl_J33R0QJ:www.hindsfoot.org/godsha.html+hindsfoot.org+matt+talbot&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Disclaimer: The placing of information on the Venerable Matt Talbot Resource Center site from external linked sources does not necessarily imply agreement with all of its contents.

*Glenn Chesnut is a professor emeritus and distinguished historian. He is currently the moderator of the "AA History Lovers" Yahoo group.

A Mother's Prayer

Apostolate (letter)

Barry O'Brian

"The Irish-born venerable Matt Talbot (1856-1925) provides an excellent example of a life of prayer and penance. He was an alcoholic from the age of 12 to 28, but his mother - like St Monica - never gave up praying for him. In 1884, her prayers were answered when Talbot vowed to give up drinking.

Pope Paul VI declared Matt Talbot venerable in 1975 having told members of an Irish Marian association in 1971 that he had read a book on Talbot's life and believed he should be canonised.

One of the great apostolates that has survived amid the changes since Vatican II is the Pioneer and Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart.

The Association's prayer, recited daily, is as follows: "For your greater glory and consolation, O Sacred Heart of Jesus! For your sake, to give good example, to practise self-denial, to make reparation to you for the sins of intemperance, and for conversion of excessive drinkers, I will abstain for life from all intoxicating drinks."

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 16 No 2 (March 2003), p. 15

Source: http://ad2000.com.au/articles/2003/mar2003p15_1273.html

Matt's mother, Elizabeth, did pray for him, as she probably did for all of her children. However, all of Matt's brothers who drank died early deaths. His brother, John, abstained from alcohol as did his sisters.

One reflection on Matt Talbot

In this brief reflection Brian notes how he "met" Matt Talbot, mentions some important details about Matt, and ends by asking an interesting question.


http://shamrockclubwis.com/Reflections/2006October.pdf

Matt Talbot's remains and tomb

Matt Talbot 1856-1925


Source:

http://www.irishgraves.com/_private/t/matt_talbot.htm

Born in Dublin. He was an alcoholic who turned to religion. He was

originally

buried in a poorer part of Glasnevin Cemetery before being moved to the vault where Fr.Gentili was buried. The coffin was moved in 1972 and the remains now rest in Our Lady of Lourdes Church,

Sean MacDermott St., Dublin. The coffin is enclosed behind glass.

Matt's current tomb above. Below left was his first
grave marker. Below right was his second tomb.
The bottom picture was when his coffin was
opened before he was reburied above.

Choosing a Temperate Way of Living

A homily presented by (then) Archbishop Sean Brady at the

2005 pilgrimage to the Shrine of Venerable Matt Talbot can be read at http://www.armagharchdiocese.org/html/arch/Matt%20Talbot%20Celebrations%2018%20Sep%202005.htm

(We have changed the title for posting purposes.)

Matt Talbot, Fr. Theobold Mathew, and Temperance

Matt Talbot National Pilgrimage

Knock

Homily By

Cardinal Sean Brady

Sunday, 16 July 2006

The name Matthew means Gift of God. The year 1856 linked two men bearing the name of Matthew. In 1856 Fr Theobold Mathew, the Capuchin priest known as the Apostle of Temperance died in Cork. That same year Venerable Matthew Talbot was born in Dublin. Both of these men were outstanding gifts sent by God to the people of Ireland - gifts sent by God to help us in the struggle for freedom and independence. I am not speaking of the struggle for political freedom and national independence from foreign oppression but rather of the struggle for personal freedom from slavery to drink and of the journey to independence in place of dependence on alcohol. Now, 150 years later, it is calculated that almost nine out of ten public order offences committed in Ireland are linked to alcohol. Obviously Ireland is now facing a new struggle for freedom

• Freedom from its reputation for the abuse of alcohol,
• Freedom to enjoy, rather than be destroyed, by this gift of God's creation.
• 
  

In an Ireland where one quarter of the cases treated in Accident and Emergency units of our hospitals are as a result of alcohol abuse, is it not time to plead with the people of Ireland to give priority to addressing the serious problem that stems from the abuse of alcohol in our society?

Fr. Theobold Mathew was an inspiration in the struggle for temperance. Venerable Matt Talbot succeeded in giving up his excessive drinking - thanks to the pledge movement, begun by Fr Mathew. Subsequently Matt Talbot became in himself a bright beacon of hope to people caught in the toils of addiction to alcohol. At the age of 28, Matt Talbot had become a seemingly hopeless alcoholic. At the tender age of 12 he got a job as a message boy for a firm of wine merchants. He quickly fell into the habit of drinking too much, a habit, which lasted some 16 years.

At the age of 28 Matt Talbot came to his senses. His own money had run out. His friends refused to buy him a drink. That day Matt took the pledge, went to Confession, the next day he received Holy Communion for the first time in years. At first he took the pledge for 3 months, then for 1 year and finally for life. The struggle to break the habit was not easy but with the help of a life of prayer and penance, Matt Talbot succeeded gloriously. He slept for only three and a half hours per night on two wooden planks and a wooden pillow, got up at 2 am to pray and went to 6 o'clock Mass. He ate no meat for 9 months of the year and at midday he ate a slice of dry bread and a cup of cold tea. Matt Talbot decided to replace the bad habit of drinking too much with the good habit of temperance.

Those who are moderate in life are admired for two important qualities, their freedom and their strength of character,

• freedom from slavery to excess and freedom for the things which lead to real joy and fulfilment,
• freedom from the demons which block and destroy wholeness, freedom for the journey to genuine happiness and maturity.
• 
  

"There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength" says St. Paul (ph.4.13).

The greatest strength of all is strength of character - the strength of self-control. The recent World Cup has often shown how costly loss of self-restraint can be.

People need help to resist the temptation to drink too much. They must be convinced with information on the potential damage to their health, physical, mental and moral. People must be helped to become confident and so secure in themselves that they don't need to turn to alcohol to get Dutch courage. They need time and attention to know that they are loved, first of all by their parents and families. The first call must go to young people themselves to take responsibility for their lives and for the consequences of their actions. They must be called and helped and motivated. They can be given self-confidence through the abundant love of their parents, which will give them the strength of character to live lives of sobriety and self-control.

At the marriage feast of Cana, Mary, the Mother of Jesus said, "They have no wine". Her son, Jesus, responded by working his first miracle. But in the midst of the mindset in which John wrote those words they refer not to the wine of the grape, but to the wine of the heart of Christ - that is compassion for all. Today in Ireland the growing drinks crisis calls for a major and concerted response from the people and from their leaders. Compassion for the plight of our young people - 'drowning in an ocean of drink', as one politician described it, should move the minds and hearts of all to action.

What can parents and guardians do? In the first place they can offer to each other and to their children an example of sobriety and/or abstinence. In this way they would be doing their best to convince their children of the damage that results from becoming addicted to alcohol. They could decide to spend more time talking to their children, praying with their children and relaxing with them.

They could meet with other committed parents from the extended family or neighbourhood to explore together the chief influences on their children, their own best hopes for their children and the support and assistance, which they need as, parents. They might even consider exploring together why drink, drugs, gambling and even vandalism sometimes seem more attractive than the challenge of becoming a follower of Jesus Christ.

Irish young people have the right to grow up in a society free from pressure to consume alcohol. Leaders in that society have a responsibility to help parents in keeping childhood and early adolescence alcohol-free in our present culture of indulgence. Could those with influence in society, clergy, teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, journalists, police and media, pool resources in order to create a more effective counter dynamic against intemperate consumption and behaviours? The problem is so serious that its remedy must become an issue of public priority. It deserves the same focus and determination from all the leaders of our society as we give to the peace process, to road safety or to the economy. The peace of so many homes, the health of so many of our young people and the happiness of our society are at stake.

Surely there is an excellent case to be made for the provision of more ample facilities and activities for young people which are drink-free. The efforts of the Pioneer Association, the No Name Club and responsible youth clubs in this regard are to be highly commended.

The questions must be asked,

• How do the various vested interests subvert the efforts to address the drink problem?
• Why do the images of "the good life" so often give the false message: - "You have to drink alcohol if you want to really enjoy yourself"?
• 
  

The fact is that it is irresponsible and illegal to serve alcoholic drink to minors. It is immoral to serve drink to people who are already drunk. It is a grave dereliction of duty to fail to try to dissuade a person, with too much drink, from driving a motor vehicle on the public highway. The widespread promotion, in various guises, of cheap drink to students, is especially reprehensible. The result is behaviour that can adversely effect their future in a wide variety of ways.

It is always better to light the candle than to curse the darkness. Those many generous people who help the addicted and their dependents deserve greater support. The example of Venerable Matt Talbot gives inspiration to all of us to give more support to those helping the rehabilitation of those addicted to alcohol and drugs.

At his death, Jesus shouted out, "I thirst." This is not thirst for a drink of beer or spirits. It is the thirst for what Jesus bestowed on each one of us, the Holy Spirit of love. Our greatest fear should be of ever losing that precious gift of God's love. Unfortunately if we abuse the gifts of the Creator we run the risk of losing the love of the Creator.

The stakes are high, very high indeed. A significant part of Irish contemporary society is deeply wounded in its relation to alcohol - alcohol, which is something good in itself but which if used to excess is anything but good. Alcohol - wine is something good, created by a good God to give joy to the human heart. The temperate person masters the excess to which nature invites. Only when wine is not used properly but abused in a misplaced exercise of human freedom does it become a problem. The primary cost of this misplaced exercise of human freedom is borne in the home by the family.

At the marriage feast of Cana, Mary said to her son, Jesus, "They have no wine". Today it is not a question of having no wine; rather it is a question of not having the ability to deal with the temptation to excess. It is a question of not having enough moderation, enough temperance and enough self-control, ultimately it is a question of knowing how to use the goods of the earth properly.

A temperate person gladly avoids any useless and intemperate use of the goods of this earth. Venerable Matt Talbot, with his outstanding life of prayer and penance, gives hope. May his life inspire all who are troubled by their use of alcohol.

Amen.

SOURCE: http://www.armagharchdiocese.org/html/arch/Matt%20Talbot%20National%20Pilgrimage%20Knock%2016%2007%2006.htm

We have changed the title of this homily for posting.

Matt Talbot and St. Columban

The names of some Irish saints are very similar. Matt Talbot's favorite saint was St. Columban, also known as Columbanus, (543-615) and not to be confused with St. Columba (521-597). One site that provides information about these two saints is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbanus

Matt Talbot's Connection with the Columban Fathers in China

"Matt Talbot's Connection with the Columbans" 

http://www.misyonmagazine.com/articles/2007/11/12/matt-talbot%e2%80%99s-connection-with-the-columbans/

"In the September-October issue we featured Mary Gaffney’s article on the Venerable Matt Talbot, the Irishman who overcame alcoholism through a life of extraordinary holiness. He had a special bond with the Columbans, as this extract from The Mystery of Matt Talbot by Father Morgan Costelloe shows. A priest of the Archdiocese of Dublin, Fr Costelloe was for many years Vice-Postulator for the cause of Matt Talbot and is now retired.

 In 1918 a significant event took place that renewed Ireland’s interest in the foreign Missions. A number of priests founded the Maynooth Mission to China. Its official title was The Missionary Society of St Columban, which meant that it was dedicated to Matt Talbot’s favorite Irish saint. Matt was quick to recognize that it heralded a rekindling of the zeal of the Irish monks to leave all for the sake of Christ . . . Matt decided to contribute as much as he could to this Missionary Society . . .

 After his illness in 1923 Matt was destitute. He could not work, so the local Conference of the St Vincent de Paul supplemented about P40 weekly sick benefit, which he received from his Trade Union. His donations to the Maynooth Mission to China stopped suddenly.

Unaware of the reason for this, the priest who usually received Matt’s contribution sent him Christmas greetings in 1924 and added that since he had not heard from him for some time, he hoped that he was not ill. Matt had some pennies saved, ‘for a special occasion’. They amounted to thirty shillings (editor’s note: roughly a week’s wage) and in the shaky hand of a sick man he wrote what has become a famous letter: 

‘Matt Talbot have (sic) done no work for the past 18 months. I have been sick and given over by priest and doctor. I don’t think I will work any more. There (sic) one pound from me and ten shillings from my sister’.

 His contribution was four times his weekly benefit. He had given everything away. The Columban Fathers, who had no idea that the writer would one day be a Servant of God, were so impressed by the letter that they placed it in a special file. Today the letter is in the Vatican Library."

Matt Talbot: Secular Franciscan

Many sketches and books about Matt Talbot note that he became a Secular Franciscan after his conversion and alcoholism recovery began. This article provides some information about the Secular Franciscan and the names of other well-known or famous Secular Franciscans.

Secular Franciscan Q and A

This page was created by the St. Clare Fraternity for those seeking to follow Christ more closely by Living Gospel to Life and Life to Gospel. The Secular Franciscan Order was founded in the early thirteenth century but many Catholics are unaware this order even exists. If fact most Secular Franciscans in my fraternity agree the SFO (Secular Franciscan Order) is one of the best kept secrets in the world. I originally made a home page for our fraternity to let others know that this order does exist. I was elated with the results. People were e-mailing me from all over the country. I soon noticed most people were asking basically the same questions so I decided to make a page answering some of the most often asked questions. The result is this page. This page was created primarily to answer your questions but it is also created for those of you feeling called but not knowing what you are being called to do. I don't believe in luck or coincidence. I do believe in Divine Providence. Maybe that's why you are here. Maybe, just maybe, the SFO is your vocation.

What is a Secular Franciscan?

Secular Franciscans are members of the third order founded by St. Francis of Assisi. Originally we were known as the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. Today, we are called Secular Franciscans.

Do you have to be single or celibate to join the Secular Franciscan Order?

NO! This order, approved and recognized by Rome, is composed of and suitable for any Roman Catholics not bound by religious vows. If you are married, single, young or old, laity or clergy and not bound by religious vows and want to follow Christ as Francis of Assisi did, please contact us.

Is the Secular Franciscan Order really a true order?

Rome has repeatedly stated that the Secular Franciscan Order is a true order. Like all orders we have a rule which is approved by Rome. We also have a novitiate, a formal profession, and a monthly meeting which substitutes for communal living.

Why are you called Secular Franciscans?

The term Secular indicates that we live in the world and although we make a public profession we are not bound by public vows as are religious orders living in community. It also distinguishes the Third Order Secular from the Third Order Regular. The Third Order Regular, which grew out of the Third Order Secular, now comprises numerous Franciscan communities all over the world.

What do Secular Franciscan do?

Did you notice the words Living Gospel to Life and Life to Gospel above? This is what we do. For most of us, it would be more accurate to say it is what we strive to do. Gospel to Life means we are to take the teachings of Jesus Christ and apply them to our every day situations. Not only wondering, what would Jesus do, but demonstrating to our fellow man what Jesus did. This means bringing peace to people and drawing them to God by living the Gospel message. We must be ready to forgive, to comfort and most of all to love. This is only accomplished by dying to ourselves. Life to Gospel means we are to conform our life to Jesus' life. We are to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, suffer as He suffered, pray as He prayed, forgive as He forgave, love as he loved. To the Secular Franciscan these words are not only a motto or a beautiful ideal. The words signify our mission, our way of life, our vocation. It is supposed to be the mission and way of life for all who call themselves Christians. It isn't easy or accomplished quickly. It is a life long work. That's the purpose of our on going formation program.

Are there any well known or famous Secular Franciscans?

Yes there are many notable people who are and have been members of the Secular Franciscan Order. The list includes members of the clergy, royalty, members of science, authors, artists, and those of us just interested in serving the Lord.

POPES:
Popes Gregory IX, Blessed Gregory X, Innocent Xll, Pius IX, Pius X, Pope Martin V, Clement XII, and all Popes from Pius IX to and including John XXIII

CARDINALS:
Charles Borromeo, Manning, Vaughn


ROYALTY:
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain


OTHERS:
St. John Vianney (Le Cure D'Ars) patron saint of Diocesan Priests, St. Joan of Arc, Dante, Giotto, Raphael, Michelangelo, Christopher Columbus, St. Thomas More, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod, André and Marie Ampère, Louis Pasteur, John Michael Talbot, parents of St. Theresa (little flower), parents of St. Maximilian Kolbe, mother of St. Maria Goretti , Blessed Peter of Sienna, a comb manufacturer, Blessed LuChesio a merchant, and dock worker Matt Talbot.

SOURCE: http://members.cox.net/sfobro/page1.html

Required Reading about Matt Talbot

Anyone who is seriously interested in the life of Matt Talbot needs to read the two books authored by the late Mary Purcell, who has been described as the "doyenne of religious biographers" and the possibly definitive biographer of Matt Talbot. These books are Matt Talbot and His Times (rev. ed., 1977), which remains in-print, and Remembering Matt Talbot (rev. ed., 1990), which is out-of-print but preread copies are available through Amazon and other sources. There is much information in these books, including interviews with people who knew Matt, that is not available elsewhere. Additional information contained in these books will be posted at a later date. (JB)

Here is a review of Matt Talbot and His Times:

"The poignant story of one man's holy battle against drink" Christian Engler amazon.com April 25, 2005 Mary Purcell's touching and well written biography of Venerable Matt Talbot, the Dublin blue-collar workman, whose slavery to drink and unquenchable and relentless addiction robbed a large part of his childhood and early adulthood, is a striking story of one man's battle against his demons--the plaguing obsession for alcoholic consumption. While at his first job at a bottling store, he learned to "put away" liquor to such an excess that by the age of thirteen, he was considered a chronic alcoholic, with no hope whatsoever for any type of recovery. At the age of twenty-eight, he had a profound conversion experience that forever altered his life, whereby God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Mary, the Virgin Mother, became the epicenter of his whole life. But up till that intense moment, drink and how to go about getting it-even if it was by criminal means-was the all engrossing fixation that took over his soul. Not even his family, friends, work, self-respect nor his own health could minutely penetrate into his gloomy obstinacy and cruel recklessness. He was indifferent and unyielding about changing any facet of himself for the better, not caring one iota how his behavior and actions wounded those around him, for his disease was a combination of genetics and emotional distress. One was compounded with the other, locked together in a physical and mental war to destroy one who did not know where or how to turn in order to combat the spiritual and psychological decimation that was occurring from within. Matt Talbot always had a distant yet respectful relationship with religion, but he had a greater bond with drink and anyone and anything associated with it. Oftentimes, when finishing up work at the docks or the yards, Matt and his buddies would head to the bars to get thoroughly tanked. To do so, he would often borrow money and offer empty promises to repay the debt. Or worse, he would beat up a drifter, as he did on one particular occasion, stealing his fiddle and pawning it for cash to be used for drink. He also sold his own shoes in the dead of winter-again-for drink alone. But more often than not, her got temporary "loans" from those around him, until that was no longer acceptable. And on one particular evening, when waiting outside a bar for his friends to arrive, his mates blatantly shunned him so completely that burning shame brought him down to the pits where nothing could revive him or so he thought, until he turned to "Him who does not fail."--page 60. After that experience and others like them, he knew humility and understood sin in its acute theological essence without having the book knowledge as a priest or theologian might. He had the life experience of it, and that goes way beyond any type of book learning. In 1882, at a church in Clonliffe, he took the abstinence pledge after his confession, and though he struggled bitterly, falling little by little, his evenings at various bars were replaced by evenings in quite reflections at various churches doing the rosary or trying to understand and assimilate scriptural truths into his recovery, for though he was practically illiterate, his conversion and openness to God's grace gave him the committed perseverance required to be the type of man that nobody thought possible. When Matt Talbot took the pledge of sobriety in 1882, he renewed it three months later, then eight months, until he took it for life, remaining clean for the balance of his forty-one years of life. But it was what he did with that gift of life which God gave him that was so arresting. Always one of the guys, he led the life of the conconsummate laborer, the best of the best; he was often cited by his foreman to take the lead for the others to emulate. In his private life, however, he worked diligently and with a pure heart to bond ever deeper to God, through His Son and the Blessed Virgin. He practiced deep acts of mortifications: fasting, praying, serving others, trying to help alcoholics who were in his same shoes, long before Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) ever emerged. He exercised his conversion by secretly wearing chains around his body, otherwise known as Slavery to Mary. And though he was never rich or truly healthy, whatever money he had, he always denied himself and gave to the less fortunate, for his miracle was his liberation from the alcohol that he wrongly believed was on par with oxygen itself for his mere survival. This was his way to give back to a Father who only wanted the best for his child. What the Matt Talbot story illustrates is that no sin-no matter how demeaning or gross or horrific or extremely overwhelming-is overpowering enough that Christ Jesus, God, can't handle it, one needs only to meet Them half way in the struggle. And the gift will most certainly be made evident. Mary Purcell's top-notch biography of Matt Talbot is without a doubt the definitive book on this little known man's holy life. Not only are his stuggles exhaustively explored with intelligent depth but so too are his times, his immediate environment and why alcoholism was so prevalent in nineteenth century Ireland. Poverty, lack of work and various other negative social issues were the causes and effects as to why so many "Matt Talbots" seemed to sprout up with a drink offering in one hand and a "screw this" mentality in the other. It is a book that reads not simply as a biography, but it reads as a fascinating chronicle of a country with its yo-yo-like ups and downs, economically, socially and politically. But with all that aside, it had-as it still does-its Catholic faith firmly held in tact, lifting and encouraging the downtrodden and those less so to look upward when it was, and sometimes is, easier to look down. Matt Talbot's story is a shining example, a future Catholic Saint whose witness has much to teach us.

Matt the Mitcher

This 90 pages paperback about Matt Talbot by Paula Murray was published in 1998 by Veritas  Publications, Dublin.  A description of this book and Chapter I can be read at  http://www.catholicireland.net/matt-the-mitcher/.

Matt Talbot as an example for the young

Besides adult books that include sketches of Matt Talbot's life, he is also featured in some children books.

Amy Welborn, popular US Catholic author and blogger, has included Matt in her book, Loyola Kids Books of Heroes, in a chapter on temperance and addiction. Most of the chapter can be read at http://www.google.com/books?id=GaDXlUnxQmgC&pg=PA100&dq=matt+talbot&sig=OiLCIQwnZlEjb7Hxpgwc6LrNjUc#PPA100,M1

"It is constancy that God wants"

In his 2003 paperback, Modern Heroes of the Church, gifted storyteller Leo Knowles introduces readers to an interesting array of 20th century Catholics.

The entire chapter about Matt Talbot can be read at the following link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lP3Iw8WV_MoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Modern+Heroes+of+the+Church&sig=UPGTpgWSeIxYa6bs2YlHJzJVAqc

Scroll down to page 67.

Some of the chapters in this (2003) edition, including the one on Matt Talbot, were previously published by the author in his book, Candidates for Sainthood, in 1978, by Carillon Books. The single source used for the Matt Talbot chapter was Eddie Doherty's 1953 edition of Matt Talbot.

Recorded Abstinence Pledge

"It is constancy the Lord wants," Matt Talbot was ever repeating. In 1884 at the age of 28, Matt made a verbal pledge of sobriety first to his mother and then a confessor and kept that pledge with great difficulty to his dying day 41 years later, in 1925.

This is a copy of an organizational sobriety pledge, recorded in 1890. (JB)

Source: http://pioneertotal.ie/pioneer/fc?action=history

Irish Venerable's Story Contradicts Stereotypes

It seems as if every culture has stereotypes to battle. The French are often perceived as effete and snobbish. Biases against Jews run the gamut from unacceptable ribbing to repulsive anti-Semitism. Americans are rude bores lacking subtlety. The Irish? They like to drink and they like to fight.

Those stereotypes, of course, tend to be inaccurate. They might describe a few members of a group, but they serve as a poor cultural descriptor. The inaccuracy of those biased perceptions is evidenced by the life of Matt Talbot, an Irishman from Dublin who may be on the slow path to Catholic sainthood.

Matt was born in 1856. He started drinking at the age of twelve and didn't stop for sixteen years. He was an alcoholic known for drinking his paychecks away and then pawning his work boots for more drinking money. He was a reliable laborer through his drinking years, until at the age of twenty eight he either quit or lost his job and spent his unemployed time drinking even more. When former co-workers seemed uninterested in helping him scrape up drink money, a depressed Talbot decided to "take the pledge".

With the help of a priest who outlined an addiction recovery program for him, Matt Talbot sobered up. The rest of his life was spent working hard, praying harder, and distributing his earnings to those less fortunate or who were doing mission work.

As a means of paying for past sins and to keep himself from drink, Talbot adopted a rigorous prayer schedule and attended mass several times every week. He read the gospels and the stories of the saints and adopted ascetic behavior patterns. He slept on wood planks using lumber as a pillow. He ate but one true meal a day, and often refused anything but the bare essentials even then. His prayer schedule was intensified by his proclivity to wear chains around the waist and legs as a means of serving penance.

Matt Talbot was an Irishman. He wasn't a drinker or a fighter though. From the age of twenty eight until his death, Talbot never touched another drop. He was also seen as a happy and pleasant person, not a brawler.

Since his death, Talbot has been given the rank of Venerable by the Catholic Church. Upon evidence of a miracle, he can be moved up in the process of becoming a saint. After discover of a second miracle, he would be canonized.

The Church seems to agree that Talbot lived an otherwise saintly life and it will be interesting to learn whether the Irish man will ever reach sainthood. Some claim his miracle was the discovery and adoption of a strategy that mimics the twelve step programs of today.

Talbot died while walking to mass. Investigation showed he was wearing his punishing chains at the time.

Even if Talbot never reaches the level of saint, his life is particularly informative in the way it casts a noticeable Irish person in light far different from what is often echoed in blind stereotype.

Irishman are said to be short-tempered drinkers. Venerable Matt Talbot appears to have been neither. He found a way to use religion to help him defeat alcoholism and did all he could to remain pleasant, optimistic and helpful to others.

Source: http://ireland.pdqguides.com/Irish-Venerables-Story-Contradicts-Stereotypes.php

"Alcohol: The Challenge of of Moderation"

2/16/2007


MAYNOOTH, Ireland (Catholic Online) – Ireland, expanding in unprecedented economic wealth, continues to struggle under the burden of growing alcoholic consumption impacting the home and society, said the nation’s Catholic bishops.

In a pastoral letter, “Alcohol: The Challenge of Moderation,” the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference said that alcohol challenges the Irish people, the Catholic Church and government to act.

Among the actions they urged included Catholics to “refrain from alcohol during Lent” and to encourage family and friends to drink less, for all Irish people to commit to cutting consumption by a one-third and for the state to make funding of treatment and recovery centers a priority.

“Our struggle with alcohol continues,” the bishops said in the almost 2,000-word document. “We owe it to this generation and the next to find a way which is not destructive or harmful, to enjoy alcohol as a gift from God.”

“If we could promote abstinence or moderation and create attitudes toward alcohol use that are conducive to a better and healthier way of life, then indeed we would be leaving a wonderful inheritance to future generations,” the bishops said.

Released in anticipation of the Feb. 18 observance of the Day of Prayer for Temperance and the beginning of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 21, the pastoral letter pointed to the contrast of two significant trends impacting Irish society: the growth of the nation as an economic power and the growth of alcoholic consumption.

Archbishop Diarmiud Martin of Dublin, Auxiliary Bishop Eamonn Walsh of Dublin, vice chairman of the Irish Bishops’ Drugs and Alcohol Initiative were among those who were to launch the release of the pastoral letter in Dublin Feb. 16 by a statue of Father Theobold Matthew, who founded the Temperance Movement in Ireland and died 150 years ago after dedicating his life to fighting the problems caused by alcoholic consumption.

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The following is the text of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference pastoral letter, “Alcohol: The Challenge of Moderation”:

Our struggles with alcohol


One hundred and fifty years ago, in 1856, Father Theobold Mathew passed away after a life dedicated to tackling the problems caused by the excessive use of alcohol. His founding The Temperance Movement was to cause a huge shift away from excessive drinking in Ireland at the time. Father James Cullen, founder of The Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in 1898, acknowledged his debt to Father Mathew, whom he described as the ‘giant at his shoulder’. They both influenced the venerable Matt Talbot, who today is a source of encouragement and hope to those who find themselves addicted to alcohol.

Ireland in the 21st century is a land of contrasting fortunes. We find ourselves, in a relatively short period of time, as one of the wealthiest nations in Europe. The economy has grown at a rate we never expected. There are jobs for our young people, and no longer is emigration the scourge it was for previous generations. The government finances have improved dramatically, and as a result wealth can be redistributed for the greater benefit of society. There is no doubt that our new wealth has brought enormous benefits.

Materially, the majority of us have never been better off. We are rightly proud of the success that modern Ireland has become. However, there are new stresses arising from the fact that very often both parents in a family are working outside the home and commuting, while the pressure to perform in the workplace is even greater. We struggle to retain the many worthwhile values learned from less pressurized times. Our struggle with alcohol continues too.

We still have pioneers and others among us who, for a variety of motives, remain as total abstainers. We have others who drink in moderation and who find no difficulty in remaining moderate. We have others – perhaps a large proportion of us – with an ambivalent relationship with alcohol, struggling to keep a cap on our consumption, slow to say “no” to an opportunity for drinking, yet uneasy about the pattern or the frequency of our use of alcohol. Finally, we have those with a love-hate relationship with alcohol, for whom moderation is much wished for but rarely attained, whose use of alcohol is a roller-coaster with great expectations and even greater regrets.

Two sides of alcohol

St. John tells us in the gospel that the first miracle of Jesus was at Cana, where he turned several gallons of water into wine – and the best of wine at that – to save the blushes of the wedding hosts and to bring joy to the wedding feast.

Unfortunately, alcohol can also become destructive and anything but life-giving. We still use it to celebrate special occasions and it has become more and more common in our homes and on our dinner tables. Over a 10-year period, Irish people’s overall consumption of alcohol has increased by 40 percent, at a time when other countries in Europe are reducing their alcohol intake. Garda statistics arising from random breath-testing of drivers, indicate that thousands of drivers, continue to take the unacceptable risk of driving while under the influence of drink, and addiction counselors can bear witness to the unhappiness in families where the unmanageability of addiction has taken root.

The challenge of alcohol

What response can we make to ensure that moderate drinking remains moderate and does not get out of hand? And what response can we make to those whose lives have already become unmanageable as a result of alcohol? The unmanageability, we know, is felt not only by the drinker, but by their family and friends and sometimes by work colleagues.

Around 1935, just half-way between the death of Father Mathew and the present day, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was founded in America by a group of people who had achieved sobriety after many years of chaotic drinking. One of these, a man named Bill, wrote the “Big Book,” as it is called, which captures the wisdom of those early members.

Although people achieve sobriety in many ways, AA remains the greatest route to recovery for people who have become dependent on alcohol. AA has lessons for all of us. One of its crucial beliefs is that of a ‘higher power.’ As alcoholics, the early members found that their own willpower was inadequate to resist the temptation of alcohol. Time and again they had made resolutions to curb their drinking and, time and again, they had failed. It was only when they asked for help and support from a greater power that their path to recovery commenced.

Carl Jung, a psychoanalyst who had a strong Christian faith, in a letter to Bill wrote about how the belief in a higher power had helped alcoholics where psychoanalysis had failed, describing the action of the Holy Spirit as ‘Spiritus contra spiritum’, the Spirit overcoming the spirit of alcohol. Alcohol confronts us with our own frailty and weakness. Even those who are not addicted need the support of a higher power in the journey through life if we are to avoid the perils of addiction. We need the support of friends, of family and of God. Indeed, there may be people around us who need our support.

The love and support of God is mediated through people just like us when we reach out to others, bringing God’s love and care into our world.

There is a plaque which has been reproduced and which hangs on the wall in many treatment centers for addictions. It reads: “You alone can do it, but you cannot do it alone.” This reminds us to accept that our willpower is not almighty and that, although “the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41). It reminds us that, in our efforts to use alcohol and the other gifts of God in moderation, we need to ask for support from each other and from God. It reminds us, too, that we may be the vital link that another person needs when they are searching for support from AA or from a treatment service or counselor. While we may not have the time or energy or expertise to help them, we may be able to refer them to where they can get the support they need.

Responding to the challenge

Alcohol, then, forces us to face two facts of life. One is our vulnerability; the other is that as humans, and as members of God’s church, we are in a community together. We are social beings; we need each other, and we need to be sustained and nourished by a power greater than ourselves.

What does this mean in practice?

First, we must accept that “more is not always better.” Moderation is good news for health, relationships, for personal expenses and, most importantly, it is good for the human spirit. It brings satisfaction and a sense of well-being.

Second, we need the humility to receive support from others. We should not be shy to express our concerns about ‘the drink’ and to share our belief in the value of moderation. We can then give and receive support with others of like mind.

Third, we can support the efforts of the state to promote moderation, for instance in tackling the problem of driving under the influence. We can take our turn, without begrudgery, as the designated driver for others, and we can look on these legislative moves as a form of social support.

Fourth, we can give and receive good example. Young people aspire to many of the behaviors of adults; but young people can also inspire adults. For example, young people have grown up with a stricter code regarding not drinking and driving than their parents’ group.

The state has an important role to play in responding to the challenge. Those who have experienced the misuse of alcohol (or other drugs) in their home know the heartbreak it brings. Family intervention skills and immediate access to treatment and recovery centers ought to be a priority, and could easily be funded from the revenue obtained through the drinks industry. The benefits would in time yield a huge dividend in restoring human dignity as well as deriving economic benefits.

But we cannot leave it all to the state. Legislation certainly influences behavior, and we are calling for a change of attitude that is not dependent on the law, but which could influence our culture. For example, one simple idea might be that everyone who drinks reduces his or her consumption by one-third and assesses the difference this makes after three months. Imagine if all the communications media invited their audiences to undertake this experiment and then discussed and evaluated people’s experiences, and also suggested other imaginative initiatives.

Such a debate would lift us out of denial and enable us to address honestly the challenge we face. Many people decide to observe temperance during Lent, in the spirit of giving up in order to become better people. Should people decide to make giving up alcohol part of their Lenten fast and abstinence, the freedom and extra resources they experience could be channeled into helping others in need at home and in the third world. Prayer often motivates us to want to make sacrifices, and ongoing prayer linked closely to life can help us to see that making sacrifices is a positive force, not just arid self-denial.

Churches too have a role to play. One recovering alcoholic said, “the real ministry takes place at the back of the church” – meaning the AA meetings which she found so useful and which took place in a room near the sacristy. The Irish Bishops’ Drugs and Alcohol Initiative (IBDAI) at the Columba Centre, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, is a pilot project that supports parishes and parish councils in preventing drug and alcohol problems in their communities. The IBDAI will welcome suggestions as to how moderation can be promoted at local parish level. We owe it to this generation and the next to find a way which is not destructive or harmful, to enjoy alcohol as a gift from God.

We commend the many adults and young people who have chosen to remain abstinent from alcohol until 18 years old or for life.

We encourage people who feel that for them alcohol has become a problem and decide to seek professional help from treatment centers, local health services or support groups in their local community.

We commend all the good work which is done by support groups around the country and the many parishes and communities that provide meeting rooms and services for such groups.

What a great legacy and gift it would be for our children in this new emerging country of ours if we would be the generation brave enough to promote and work for an attitude and culture of moderation rather than excess in our use of alcohol.

If we could promote abstinence or moderation and create attitudes towards alcohol use that are conducive to a better and healthier way of life, then indeed we would be leaving a wonderful inheritance to future generations.

Practical suggestions:
• Refrain from alcohol for the weeks of Lent.
• Consider drinking non-alcoholic drinks when out with friends at the weekend.
• Reduce the intake of alcohol from what is your normal use.
• Encourage your friends to reduce alcohol intake.
• Donate some of the money saved from alcohol to a charity of your choice.
• Encourage discussion with your friends about the dangers of excessive drinking.
• Initiate a discussion in the home about the family’s attitude to and use of alcohol.
• Nationally, we might encourage people to reduce their alcohol use, say by one-third or a half, during the weeks of Lent.

Source: http://www.catholic.org/printer_friendly.php?id=23062&section=Cathcom

P.T.A.A. and Alcoholics Anonymous

"Pioneering with a difference"

Bernard J. McGuckian, S.J.

The apostolic initiative of an Irish Jesuit, Fr James Cullen has given an unusual connotation to the word "Pioneer' in his native country. Just over a century ago he conceived the idea of a movement intended to carry his fellow Irish men and women out of widespread slavery to alcohol into the freedom of sobriety. To fire their imagination and get them on the move he could think of no better word than "Pioneer', one that was proving so successful at the time in fuelling the westward drive in North America. The word was also used in a contemporary translation of the New Testament where Jesus was described as "the pioneer and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12,2.) The movement, officially entitled the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart (PTAA), has attracted hundreds of thousands of members in Ireland and overseas, especially in English-speaking Africa, since it was founded by Fr. Cullen and four lady associates at the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Dublin on December 28, 1898. The Irish Government honoured the event by issuing a centenary commemorative stamp featuring the Sacred Heart, the founder himself and the facade of St. Francis Xavier's. Father Cullen was convinced that a movement based on scripture, rooted in devotion to the Sacred Heart and tempered by lgnatian discretion could effect a dramatic change in the undesirable drinking habits of his contemporaries. From his religious perspective unrestrained drinking with all its deplorable side effects was one of those demons that could only be exorcised by a widespread campaign of prayer and fasting cf Mark 9,28. What was original in his approach was his starting point. He did not ask those with a personal drink problem to undertake the "prayer and fasting". In a truly Pauline spirit he appealed to the generosity of the members of the Body of Christ. Lifelong consecrated abstinence on the part of those spared the trauma of addiction would prove a "gentle violence" storming heaven in favour of people afflicted with it. Like St. lgnatius in the Meditation on the Kingdom of Christ in the Spiritual Exercises, he dared ask for both the magis, a readiness for more and greater things and the agere contra, a willingness to go against the grain. He knew the need for yet another lgnatian characteristic, discreta caritas, acting with a sensitive love, in all apostolic endeavour. To guard against any tendency towards indiscreet zeal in the Association, Fr. Cullen's successors as central directors have always taken care to point out that the Association looks to those prepared to go beyond the call of duty in what is technically a work of supererogation. They have been guided by the maxim that "the Christian religion condemns intemperance, commands temperance and commands total abstinence". It was Sacred Heart Devotion that underpinned the magnanimous response to Fr. Cullen's challenging call. He was able to tap into the willing acceptance of self-sacrifice and reparation in the Devotion at the time. The prayer of offering which he himself composed encapsulates the spirituality of the Pioneers and is proposed for twice daily recitation as one of the three conditions of membership. The undoubted lgnatian resonance is apparent from the first line: "For your greater glory and consolation, O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for your sake to give good example, to practise self-denial, to make reparation to you for the sins of intemperance and for the conversion of excessive drinkers, I will abstain for life from all intoxicating drinks. Amen" The two other conditions of membership are total abstinence for life from all alcoholic drink, except when prescribed by a doctor in case of illness and the wearing of a little emblem of the Sacred Heart as a visible sign of one's commitment. The spirituality of the movement, especially the focus on the Sacred Heart, has attracted men and women from every walk of life. The majority tend to be conscientious about the practise of their Catholic faith, valuing this much more than their option for total abstinence. It is hardly surprising that within the ranks have been many persons outstanding for holiness including several candidates for canonization. Among these are Venerable Matt Talbot, a one-time alcoholic; Venerable Edel Quinn, an indefatigable promoter of the Legion of Mary in East Africa. the Servant of God, Fr. John Sullivan, an Irish Jesuit of extraordinary asceticism, noted for his love of the sick and the Servant of God, Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary. Cardinal Dominic lgnatius Ekandem of Nigeria and the legendary Daniel Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne were both members. Perhaps the most distinguished Churchman among the current membership is Cardinal Cahal B. Daly, former Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop Emeritus of Armagh. When Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) first came to Ireland in 1946 the then Central Director of the Pioneers, Fr. Daniel Dargan S.J., welcomed it with open arms and offered a platform to AA members at Pioneer gatherings. The two movements complemented one another. The principal focus of AA was to help problem drinkers come to terms with their situation. The P.T.A.A. was primarily conceived as a prayer and prevention movement whose members, even if not personally affected by addiction, were willing to give a penitential expression to their concern for those who were. The P.T.A.A. has been a major influence in Irish life all through the 20th century, raising awareness of the need for care in the use of alcohol and more recently, drugs. Youngsters, even from families where alcohol was not a problem have promised to abstain from alcohol for life as a penitential gesture in honour of the Sacred Heart. Hundreds of thousands have actually kept that promise through every decade of the century. In Ireland today 8 per cent of the population are Pioneers and a further 17 per cent abstain for other reasons. That this is now the case among a people disparagingly known at the beginning of the 20th century as the "drunken Irish" is nothing less than a moral miracle. One remarkable feature of the Association is the spirit of volunteerism among the members. Indeed the voluntary organisations of Ireland, both religious and secular, could scarcely function without the Pioneer contribution. They are to be found as presidents, secretaries, treasurers and staunch members of credit unions, the legion of Mary, sporting bodies especially the Gaelic Athletic Association (one of the largest amateur sporting associations left in our highly commercialised world), trade unions, the St.Vincent De Paul, parent teacher associations etc. Fr. Cullen's hope, in founding the Pioneers, was not that the Association would take away other groupings to which they already belonged. On the contrary, it would help them become even better and more reliable workers in these organisations. Prior to World War II the Pioneer phenomenon largely remained within the Irish ethnic group. The first signs of significant growth elsewhere appeared in Africa where Irish missionaries found that people were as responsive to the Pioneer ideal as in their own homeland. Membership in Africa, now of the order of 300,000 is rising continually. Missionaries from other European nations, particularly Dutch and Belgian Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) promote the apostolate enthusiastically in Uganda and Tanzania. At Enugu in June 1999 over 15,000 people attended the first nation-wide rally in Nigeria. More recently a very committed group in Bolivia has espoused the ideals. One area where the Association hopes to make some ground in the near future is among native Americans in South Dakota. However, in the US mainstream, efforts at temperance promotion, with the notable exception of AA, have been bedevilled by the long shadow cast by the unfortunate experience of the Prohibition era. Part of the strength of AA is that all it asks of the public is goodwill. The P.T.A.A., if it is to succeed, has to ask for something more. The centenary year celebrations which coincided with the last year of the 20th century revealed an enormous amount of good will towards the Association. Practically the whole Irish hierarchy and several hundred priests concelebrated the Centenary Mass in Croke Park Dublin on May 30, 1999, where 35,000 people attended, including the President of Ireland, Mrs. Mary McAleese and the Prime Minister, Mr. Bertie Ahern, in spite of bitterly cold weather. It was highly appropriate that the principal speaker should be an African prelate, Cardinal Francis Arinze, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue. He exhorted the attendance from all five continents to keep up the struggle, insisting that the work of the Pioneers would be as relevant in the 21st as it had ever been in the 20th century. One Indian Bishop, the Jesuit Michael Minj of Gumia went home determined to stress more than ever the Sacred Heart dimension of the work. He will find that "in proportion as they give Him this pleasure (promoting the devotion) this divine Heart, source of blessings and graces, will shower them so abundantly on the works of their ministry that they will produce fruits far beyond their labours and expectations. And this, too, for their own personal salvation and perfection" (Vision of St. Margaret Mary, July 2, 1688). Source: We have changed the title for posting purposes. (JB) http://www.pioneertotal.ie/pioneer/fc?action=pioneeringDifference

Pioneer Total Abstinence Association

A sober Matt Talbot joined the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association after its founding in 1898 and might be considered its most well-known member worldwide. (JB)

"Promoting sobriety for a better society"

Hello and welcome to the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association online. You can use this site to keep abreast of all events and news within the Pioneer community, join the Association, purchase Pioneer pins and other merchandise or subscribe to our official publications.

Effects of Addiction

An addiction destroys not only the body but peace of mind and the human spirit as well. The will to live is weakened, hope turns to despair, joy to sadness and the world becomes a dark, bleak and dreary place. The Pioneer asks God to reach in to the depths of the afflicted soul, to fill them with love, to bring them back from the brink and to turn their lives around.

Pioneer Spirituality

The Pioneer Movement was founded by Fr. James Cullen, SJ in 1898 to address the problem of Alcohol abuse which was rampant in Irish society at that time and to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Fr. Cullen recognised that it was only through devotion to the Sacred Heart that the scourge of alcohol could be destroyed.

The Pioneer Association has, in over 100 years, spread throughout the world and its membership is continually growing in countries like Africa and Latin America.

The Pioneer makes a committment to abstain from alcohol for life. This represents a sacrifice by which great graces are obtained from God for those people suffering from the abuse of alcohol.

This committment and the daily Pioneer prayer is a powerful means of helping someone suffering from addiction.

An addiction is where you have no control over your life as feeding the addiction consumes your mind, body, soul and spirit. In these circumstances, a person is trapped in their addiction with little prospect of changing their life around.

The Pioneer firmly believes that by reciting the Pioneer Prayer twice daily, God, and only God can help that person to overcome their addiction. Consider any bad habits which you may have and try changing them. Is it not a difficult task?. An addiction is much more serious and can have detrimental consequences for your life.

Considering the suffering, pain and heartache inflicted on the individual,family, friends, society - surely the Pioneer 'Heroic Offering' is a wonderful way of supporting them in their needs. The realities of an addiction results in a daily struggle but the power of prayer can help them along.

The Sacred Heart made 12 promises to us. Follow the link below to view these promises.

12 Promises of the Sacred heart

How Devotion to the Sacred Heart began

Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1673 in the small village of Paray le Mondial in France to reveal to the world the consecration to his Sacred Heart. Revealing to her his Divine Heart, Jesus said:

"Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself to prove to them its love.
In return, I receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude, contempt, irreverence, sacrilege, and coldness in this Sacrament of my love.
But what I feel still more is that there are hearts consecrated to me who use me thus.
Therefore I ask of you that the friday after the Octave of the Blessed Sacrament be kept as a special festival in honour of my Heart,
to make reparation for the indignities offered to It and as a Communion day,
in order to atone for the unworthy treatment It has received when exposed upon the altars.
I also promise that my Heart shall shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine love on all those who shall honour It or cause It to be so honoured."

St. Margaret Mary Alocoque was cannonised in 1920. The Sacred Heart Devotion has spread throughout the world revealing to us God's love and mercy for each and every individual.

An example of the Power of Prayer

In 1972, during Fr. McGuckian's first weeks at the Pioneer Office as assistant to Fr. Dargan, Central Director, a letter came in from a man of French-Canadian extraction living in British Columbia. He gave a brief description of his life.

Married with a wife and family, he was the senior partner in a law firm. Sometime previously he had begun drinking heavily. As a consequence, his partners left him, and eventually so did his children and his wife. After a period he somehow managed to stop drinking. His wife and children came back, and so did his partners.

At the time of writing he was trying to make sense of what had happened to him. Life for him now, from being a complete mess, had turned into something satisfying and a source of happiness. But for the life of him he could not think of any steps that he had taken to bring about the change.

Apparently, he had consulted no-one, nor joined any organisation. Yet things seemed to have just come right. He added that he read somewhere or other about a group of people called the Pioneers, mainly based in Ireland, an island he had never seen, who prayed every day for the "conversion" of people like himself with a drink problem

He had located our address, and sent the letter testifying to his conviction that Pioneer prayer must have had something to do with the remarkable turnabout in his life. He also sent a cheque for $25 as a sign of his appreciation.

Source: http://pioneertotal.ie/pioneer/fc?action=intro

Matt Talbot Photograph

This is the only known photograph of Matt Talbot, which has been enlarged from a group photograph taken in T & C Martin's, where Matt worked, about 1918.