[This article gives us pause to consider our own
"prisons."]
“He has sent me to bring good news to the poor,
to bind up hearts that are broken;
to proclaim liberty to captives,
freedom to those in prison."
Few, majestically selected words from Isaiah as the books comes to a close
end. It is not until we look at the saints who have struggled in some previous
form of lives that we get a newer dimension of the scope of the prisons meant
hereby. For instance, alcohol has become such a painful dear in the lives of
many couples, family and mostly unnoticed, the victims themselves. It is
pathetic to realize just how some of the victims struggle to lay of this habit
that becomes a key part of them albeit in despair and lost self esteem and
hope.
Today we have a look at one of the Venerables, Venerable Matt Talbot, born
in Ireland on May 2, 1856. Talbot was the second born in a family of twelve to
his parents, Charles and Elizabeth Talbot. The family was primarily poor and his
father and all Talbot's younger brothers were heavy drinkers. At the age of 12
Matt left school and started working in a wine merchant's store. He was now best
placed to start sampling their wares the very commodity he was at the heart of.
In little time Matt was working in the whiskey stores. In matter of some more
time, Matt was a confirmed alcoholic. He now joined the league of his brothers
and friends in frequenting pubs in the city and ended up more often than not
spending most or all of his wages and running up debts. He reportedly went to
the extent of once stealing a fiddle from a street entertainer and selling it to
buy drink.
This may serve as a classic example of how what we thought would just be a
happy night out, or once in a while may end up in such a scenario. Matt was not
genetically or in any other way inclined to alcohol than most of his friends who
never ended up drinking were. But what separates Matt from the rest of the world
is what follows after he is caught up in this his new necessity of his
system.
One evening in 1884 a penniless Talbot waited patiently and great hope
outside a pub for somebody who would invite him in for a drink. After several
friends had passed him without offering to treat him, he went home in disgust
and announced to his mother that he was going to "take the pledge" and renounce
drinking. Matt took a pledge of three months at Holy Cross College, Clonliffe.
At the end of the three months, he took the pledge for six months, then for
life.
Having drunk excessively for 16 years, Talbot maintained sobriety for the
following forty years of his life. He found strength in prayer, began to attend
daily Mass, and read religious books and pamphlets. He repaid all his debts
scrupulously. Having searched for the fiddler whose instrument he had stolen,
and failed to find him, he gave the money to the church to have Mass said for
him.
Talbot worked hard from being an indifferent Catholic in his drinking days.
He became increasingly devoutu under the guidance of Dr. Michael Hickey,
Professor of Philosophy in Clonliffe College. He read widely and wore a chains
as a form of penance. In 1980 he joined Third Order Franciscan in 1890 and was a
member of several other associations and sodalities. Though poor himself, Talbot
was a generous man and gave generously to neighbours and fellow workers, to
charitable institutions and the church. He ate very little and after his
mother's death in 1915 he lived in a small flat with very little furniture. He
slept on a plank bed with a piece of timber for a pillow. He rose at 5 a.m.
every day so as to attend Mass before work. At work, whenever he had spare time,
he found a quiet place to pray. He spent most of every evening on his knees. On
Sundays he attended several Masses. He walked quickly, with his head down, so
that he appeared to be hurrying from one Mass to another.
Talbot was on his way to Mass on Sunday, 7 June 1925, when he collapsed and
died of heart failure on Granby Lane in Dublin. Nobody at the scene was able to
identify him. His body was taken to Jervis Street Hospital, where he was
undressed, revealing the extent of his austerities. A heavy chain had been wound
around his waist, with more chains around an arm and a leg, and cords around the
other arm and leg.
Matt Talbot's story is one that often reminds me of how close to far and
close to hope and liberty we are from the points of the prison sentences each of
us could be serving. St Augustine proofs to us that not even the ordinary men on
the path to sainthood are free of this hurdles in life. In his confessions, St
Augustine remembers of his early prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but
not yet". He confesses that lust is one of the evils he had to fight so hard as
it always faced him the hard way, as attributed to his former life. But that at
the end never prevented him from fulfilling what was the will of the Father, to
be a key instrument and personality in the Gospel and Theology close to 1700
years since His death.
Let us all remember that as much as we have control of own selves,
sometimes things may get the better part of us. Lets keep in prayers and we seek
liberty from our several prisons, those of lust, fatigue, concupisence, reliance
on various substances as we seek the intercession of Venerable Matt
Talbot.