The Venerable Matt Talbot Resource Center exists to compile writings about the life, times, conversion, and recovery from alcoholism of Matt Talbot (1856-1925) of Dublin, Ireland. Disclaimer: The placing of information on this site from external linked sources does not necessarily imply agreement with that information. This center is independent of any other center, group, organization, website, or Facebook page. Comments are welcome at: ven.matt.talbot.resource.center@gmail.com
Images of Granby Lane, Dublin 1 where Matt
Talbot died in 1925 and his memorial plaque. You can see the back of St .Saviour’s in
the background of the picture where he was headed for another Mass.
The scope of All Saints' Day includes all those officially
recognized as saints and those whose cause for canonization has not yet been
completed, like Venerable Matt Talbot.
It also includes those whose holy lives were known only to God as well as their family, friends or religious communities.
As we recently posted on March 4, 2019 (http://venerablematttalbotresourcecenter.blogspot.com/search/label/Blessed%20John%20Henry%20Newman) MattTalbot was basically illiterate when he
signed a pledge not to drink, confessed his sins to a priest, and turned his
life over to the care of God at the age of 28. He laboriously began to read over the years and would frequently ask his
spiritual advisor and the Lord about certain words and what certain passages
meant.
Over the years he read his
Bible, the lives of saints, and books by saints. One day, in the timber yard
during lunch break Daniel Manning, a fellow
worker, saw Matt reading Apologia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry
Newman and said to Matt that he tried to read it but it was very difficult to
understand. Matt simply answered that when he got a book like that he always
prayed to Our Blessed Lady and she always inspired him to take the correct
meaning from the words. See page 101 at
“Guess House in
Michigan (USA) has been serving the Catholic Church for more than 60 years with
“the world’s first and most
successful treatment and recovery program for Catholic clergy and religious
in providing the information, education, treatment and care needed to overcome
alcoholism, addictions and other behavioral health
conditions.” (https://guesthouse.org/
Who is Matt Talbot? A growing number of people in recovery
know. In November 1991, St. John Paul II told a Guest House
alumnus “I am very interested in the canonization of Matt
Talbot.”
Guest House began prayers and Masses in honor of Talbot’s
June 19 Feast many years ago and Guest House priests have led or been a part of
the growing Matt Talbot retreat movement. Father Mark Stelzer, Guest House
education director, has led several of the popular retreats.This
year, Guest House brought benefactors and alumni from across the United States
for its first Matt
Talbot pilgrimage to Ireland, retracing his journey through life. But
exactly who was Matt Talbot? His story is inspiring:
Venerable Matt Talbot (May 2, 1856 to June 7,
1925) was an Irish alcoholic (admittedly the son of a drunk), and a
laborer who became an ascetic (ascetics abstain from sexual and other pleasures
in pursuit of spiritual goals). When brick layer’s laid bricks, he served as
their “hodman,’’ humbly gathering mortar and bricks for the
craftsmen.
How Matt Talbot hit bottom
Numerous American Catholics say a devotion to Matt Talbot
helped in their journey toward recovery. From age 13 to age 28, his
drinking was uncontrollable. Friends said Matt “only wanted one thing: the
drink… for the drink, he’d do anything.’’
In his darkest days, Matt
literally spent all his available money on alcohol.
When his wages were exhausted, he could turn the mangle (the
hand-driven mechanism that squeezed the water out of wet clothes) for a local
wash woman. His reward for helping a wash woman? A pig’s head. He would then
sell the pig’s head for money to buy drinks.
He was also known to pawn his coat or boots for money to buy
alcohol and he would be mocked for walking barefoot through the streets. He hit
bottom when he and his brothers stole a fiddle from a blind street musician,
selling it for the price of a single drink.
He eventually began a seven year search to find the street
musician he had robbed. He eventually took the money he hoped to return to the
musician and used it to have Masses offered for the man’s soul.
Talbot knew he had to go to Confession. So he went to Holy
Cross College, the seminary for Dublin, Ireland, where he confessed his
sins.
He soon after, made a pledge to stop drinking for three months
but there was no Alcoholics Anonymous, no recovery or support groups, not even
family or friends he could count on. So he focused everything he had on
God.
For the first time in many years, he accepted the sacrament of
Holy Communion at a morning Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church, beginning a new
routine of attending Mass every day.
But the struggle continued. During Mass, he
fell to the floor, hearing a voice tell him “It’s no use. You’ll never stop
drinking.” He got on his knees, begging God for mercy.
“Three things I cannot escape.’’
Talbot declared. “ The Eye of God, the voice of conscience, the stroke of death.
In company, guard your tongue. In your family, guard your temper. When alone,
guard your thoughts.”
12 steps before the 12 Steps
Fifty years before the 12-steps were written, Matt Talbot
learned his own variation with a Jesuit spiritual advisor who followed the
Ignatian Way:
He abstained from drinking (vowing to be sober for three
months, then for another six months and finally for the rest of his life but the
first seven years of his abstaining was particularly difficult for
him.
He confessed his sins regularly, attending
daily Mass.
He learned to read so he could study the Bible, becoming
a lay member, Third Order Franciscan.
He gained strength by frequently praying before the
Blessed Sacrament, asking how anyone could be lonely when they were with the
Lord. Some say they saw him in “ecstasy” when praying before the
Crucifix.
He would take working class jobs and give to charity the
money he would have otherwise spent on alcohol.
His desire for alcohol remained but when he felt the urge
to drink, he went to Church, turned to God for help and prayed.
“It is easier to get out of hell’’ than to give up
drinking, Talbot said. He also gave up smoking, confiding that it was actually
easier to give up alcohol than it was to quit smoking.
Talbot was often asked to pray for others. Once, when asked to
pray for a man’s sick wife, Talbot said he would pray to Our Lady. The next day,
he told the man the prayers would be answered but not in the way he hoped,
telling the man to not to be afraid, that everything would work out as it was
meant to. The next day, the man’s wife died and the man felt certain Talbot’s
prayers had been heard and that his wife was in Heaven.
Matt Talbot: From “poorest of the poor” to being widely known as
holy
The poorest of the poor and most addicted people can relate to
his testimony.
As the Matt
Talbot Dublin Diocesan Committee argues, Talbot: “lived
in a tenement, wore second hand clothes, died in a laneway and was buried in a
pauper’s grave.
Coming from such a deprived background and with an alcoholic
father and a family history of neglect and poverty, Matt found himself sucked
into the culture of addiction and to the only choice of drug available to the
poor of his day, alcohol. Matt, like so many others, embraced alcohol as a means
of escape from the misery and poverty of daily life. Today we live in an age of
addictions more sophisticated perhaps than those of Matt’s day, addictions to
substances such as alcohol and other drugs soft or hard, prescription or
illegal, addictions to gambling, pornography and the internet, addictions to
work, professional advancement, sex, money and power. All these have the ability
to destroy our lives and like demons even our very souls as well.”
He is celebrated as a patron of the fallen, broken and
alcoholics. Talbot also spoke of “the Way” saying: “To know God and to
understand His ways and to watch in His presence in all sanctity is the great
end of life.”
He died at age 69 on Trinity Sunday 1925, the hottest day
of the year in the midst of a heat wave, while hurrying to attend his second
Mass of that Sunday. Witnesses who gathered around him after he fell in the
nearby streets said his eyes closed around 9:40a.m. as the Church bells were
ringing.
People immediately began talking about his intense
holiness and spreading the word. A short biography written about him the year
after he died sold more than 120,000 copies.
People wanted to hear his story. The first formal book
about this poor worker, Life of Matt Talbot, would appear in 1928, just
three years after his death.
By 1931, the beatification process had already
begun and the following year, the International Eucharistic Congress started
encouraging pilgrims to learn the Matt Talbot story.
By 1972, work began on a
shrine and in 1975, he was declared Venerable by St. Paul VI.
“Never be too hard
on the man who can’t give up drink,’’ Talbot once said. “It’s as hard to give up
drink as it is to raise the dead to life again. But both are possible and even
easy for Our Lord. We have only to depend on
Him.’’
"Catholic in Recovery (https://catholicinrecovery.com) is a nonprofit organization that seeks to serve
those suffering from addictions and unhealthy attachments (including alcoholism,
drug addiction, pornography addiction, sex and relationship addiction,
compulsive overeating and food addictions, gambling addiction, codependency and
the impact on family, and general fear, control, and anxiety).
The organization was started by the passion of Scott Weeman as
he found healing and new life through the help of twelve step recovery and the
sacramental love and mercy provided by the Catholic Church. We support parishes
and communities with group resources that draw people closer to these two
powerful sources of grace. It is the aim of Catholic in Recovery to share the
Good News that God can bring about healing and recovery, even in the most
hopeless of cases."
After 30 years of drug and alcohol abuse, Pat — a Philadelphia native with
tattooed arms and a Rocky Balboa accent — made an unlikely new friend: Matt
Talbot, an Irish laborer who’d been dead for about a century.
“I’d never heard of him until I got sober,” said Pat, now a member
of the Calix Society, a Catholic support group for those in addiction recovery.
During a Calix meeting that Pat attended after getting clean, the
group’s national chaplain, Father Douglas McKay, showed a film on Talbot, who
had battled the bottle throughout adolescence and early adulthood.
After taking an abstinence pledge at age 28, Talbot remained sober
for decades until his death in 1925, living a quiet, ascetic life that included
daily Mass, prayer, Scripture reading and charitable works.
Collapsing on a Dublin
street en route to Mass, Talbot was discovered to have regularly worn
penitential chains. Declared “venerable” by Pope Paul VI in 1975, Talbot is now
invoked as an intercessor by a number of groups that minister to those
suffering from addiction, including the Calix Society, which was founded in the
U.S.
some 20 years after Talbot’s death.
During his August 2018 visit to Ireland,
Pope Francis stopped at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Dublin to pray before several relics of
Talbot, whose tomb is just feet from the church’s altar.
For Pat, learning about Talbot was life-changing, and he began
praying to the would-be saint, whose intercession he also credits for his
healing from an intestinal rupture that required 14 hours of emergency surgery.
After his hospitalization, Pat attended a Matt Talbot-themed
retreat, where he was able to release many of the resentments that had fueled
his addiction.
“I found forgiveness not only for myself, but for the people who
had molested me as a child, and for anybody that had ever hurt me,” he said. “I
finally saw everyone as being worthy of God’s love.”
Longtime Calix member Kathy Diering said that Talbot, in his
resolute example of holiness, “speaks volumes without even speaking.”
“When you look at his hiddenness, his spirituality, you see that
he really knew that the body and blood of Christ were his true source of life,”
she said. “He was steadfast, and that’s been an inspiration for me, because he
shows what is possible.”
Talbot’s conversion from sot to saint, made all the more dramatic
by the severity of his alcoholism, resonates with those looking to free
themselves from addiction. In fact, many of those devoted to Matt Talbot say
that his sanctity was the real key to his sobriety.“He knew that everyone else might leave him, but God wouldn’t,”
said Diering. “And that’s where his strength was.
”
Holiness is a sign of authentic recovery from addiction, said
Father McKay, who is looking to create a national shrine to Matt Talbot in Philadelphia. While
addiction is a complex disease of body, mind and spirit, he said, too often
treatment only focuses on the first two, without addressing the soul’s deep
hunger for connection with the divine.
Globally, some 35 million people now struggle with drug addiction,
according to the United Nations. A separate study projects that alcohol
consumption (which rose 10% between 1990 and 2017) will increase by another 17%
worldwide over the next decade.
In the face of such daunting statistics, Talbot’s appeal as a role
model and intercessor continues to grow internationally, thanks to the
dedicated efforts of those who work to share, online and in person, the
Irishman’s message of hope.
From his native Poland, Gregory Jakielski has been diligently
spreading devotion to this saint-in-the-making for the past seven years,
maintaining both a website and Facebook page that feature a number of Matt
Talbot resources. In August 2018, he collected hundreds of names that were
placed by a pilgrim on Matt Talbot’s tomb in Dublin.
For Pat, Matt Talbot's simplicity makes clear the path to both sobriety and sanctity. "He had no real possessions, he said. He didn't need anything but God's love, and he wanted to make others feel that too."
The author of this article serves as Director of Formation for
Catholic Schools and Catechesis at the Archdiocese of Denver and teaches at the Augustine
Institute(USA).Photographs accompanying this article are found on the link below.
We began our Beauty of Faith Pilgrimage to Ireland in Dublin, visiting
its churches and its saints/saints in the making: St. Valentine-the Roman saint
whose relics are at the Whitefriar Street church; St. John Henry Newman’s
University Church where he delivered some of the discourses that became An
Idea of a University; St. Lawrence O’Toole, medieval bishop of the city,
and Bl. John Sullivan, a Jesuit with a gift for healing.
Dublin is also known for its drink. As author of The Beer
Option, I had to explore this tradition, even if it was driven by
Protestants at a time Catholics suffered under the penal laws. In the book, I
drew from Mansfield’s The Search for God and Guinness, and it seemed
wise to stop by Ireland’s number one tourist destination, the Guinness
Storehouse. The Guinness family ardently supported the Church of Ireland
(helping to start Protestant Sunday school, restoring the formerly Catholic St.
Patrick’s Cathedral, and producing an international preacher in Henry
Grattan Guinness), but also took good care of their workers, most of whom were
Catholic, providing them housing, healthcare, good wages, and education.
Brewing does have a longer Catholic story in Ireland as well. St. Patrick
traveled with a brewer during his evangelization of the nation. St. Brigid (who
composed the great prayer for a lake of beer) and St. Columban both performed
numerous beer miracles, especially the dividing of beer! At the National Museum
of Ireland we encountered a brewing tub over a thousand years old, as well as an
attempt to honor a great Irish saint at Glendalough with a mircrobrew (as the
ancient monasteries brewed for their own consumption, as well as for the sick,
poor, and guests). St. Kevin’s Red was quite good after a walk around the
monastic city and two lakes of the valley (more on that
later).
Watching over our pilgrimage, however,
were two holy figures from Dublin to make sure we consumed in moderation (both
of whom appear in The Beer Option. Fr. Theobald Matthew (1790-1856)
formed the Total Abstinence Society to combat the sin of drunkenness and
administered the pledge to over 3 million people in Ireland, and also traveled
in Britain and the United States. Alcohol clearly falls within Jesus’ teaching
on the Sermon on the Mount: “If your eyes causes you to sin, pluck it out.” The
other is Ven. Matt Talbot (1856-1925), who became an alcoholic at a young age,
while working in a liquor store. He fell to such a level that his friends mocked
him and refused to help him, causing him to wake up, go to confession, and take
the pledge. He became a Third Order Franciscan, consecrated his life to Our Lady
following St. Louis de Montfort, adopted strict penances, and spent his life
serving his fellow, poor workers in
Dublin.
The Catholic tradition embraces the festivity of
eating and drinking, but within the context of fasting and friendship so that,
as Paul says, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory
of God.” Our pilgrimage experience in Dublin testified to the right balance of
drinking and abstaining, both witnessed by the saints.
"Dear
friends. I would like to share a few thoughts this week on addiction. I do so
not only because it is topical and relevant to our society today but because it
is found in the Gospel story this weekend of the man who wasn’t contented with
his rich harvest but wanted an even greater return the following year – a year
he would never see because of his premature death. Like many addictions, his was
to ‘having more’. What he had was never enough.
Now when we talk about addictions, we might
be tempted to think only of the big ones we hear about – addictions to alcohol,
to smoking, drugs, gambling or pornography. If we do then we might be tempted to
cod ourselves in thinking that addictions effect other people but not me. That
I’m ok. The truth is that all of us are prone to any number of addictions at any
time. Most of us are probably struggling with some addiction right now. It’s not
a question of if we are, but more a question of ‘to what am I addicted?’ This is
because the human spirit always seeks to attach itself to something greater than
itself. And it is this attachment that will either destroy us or fill us with
joy in this life and the next.
One man who came full circle on this journey
of attachment and detachment was Matt Talbot. It is said that he was a hopeless
alcoholic by the time he was 14. He was so addicted to drink that he would do
anything and lose everything just to have another drink. He pawned his clothes
and boots to get money for alcohol. On one occasion, he stole a fiddle from a
street entertainer in Dublin and sold it to buy drink. His addiction to alcohol
turned him into someone he hated to be. When he hit rock bottom, he turned to
God in desperate prayer and pledged with his grace to detach himself from drink
and to attach himself ever more faithfully to God. In his efforts to turn his
life around, Matt Talbot was successful but credited everything to God and his
mercy.
We can learn so much from his story. The most
important thing to learn is how his addiction, like our addictions and every
addiction, is a spiritual problem that needs a spiritual cure. Before his
conversion, Matt Talbot tried to satisfy his need for God with alcohol before he
realised that there is no chemical solution to a spiritual problem. We are prone
to addictions when God is not in first place and what comes first instead in our
lives are things that can never replace him. Matt Talbot’s detachment from drink
corresponded to his attachment to God. To help him make this painful transition,
we know he read the writings of St Frances de Sales who urges us not just to
give up our addictions but to give up our love for them. So for Matt Talbot, it
wasn’t just a question of giving up the drink. It was just as much about giving
up his love for it. Since his death on 7th June 1925, Matt Talbot has been an
inspiration and sign of hope to people like us who struggle with addictions. He
was declared Venerable by Pope Paul VI in 1975 and how wonderful it would be if
one day he is declared a saint. He once wrote: ‘Never be too hard on the person
who can’t give up drink. It’s as hard to give up the drink as it is to raise the
dead to life again. But both are possible and even easy for Our Lord. We have
only to depend on him.’
Today we pray for ourselves, that we may know
our addictions and admit them. We pray that we become detached and free from
whatever holds us back and kills our joy that comes from God. We pray that every
day, we may attach our spirits in humble prayer to the God who made them and the
God for whom they were made. We pray for all those whose lives are being
destroyed by addiction here and beyond. May this be the time when new hope is
born and many souls turn back again to God. Matt Talbot, pray for
us."
We celebrate the seventh anniversary of Gregory
“meeting” Matt Talbot in an article and his subsequent promotion of Matt
throughout the world through websites and Facebook in Polish and English and
especially in providing free Matt Talbot prayer cards.
Since Gregory has been personally paying for the prayer
cards, we strongly encourage your
financial support for his action at PayPal: mateusztalbot@wp.pl
“7
YEARS WITH VENERABLE MATT Today is a special day for me!
7 years ago in the bookshop in Niepokalanów (Poland) I have
received the August issue of the monthly "Word Among Us". There was an article
devoted to the Venerable Matt Talbot and so my adventure began. These seven
years have passed like one day. I am asking for prayer for strength and resources for the next
years of work for spreading information about Venerable Matt Talbot.”
Addiction understanding and recovery options were far more
limited in Venerable Matt Talbot’s day. Yet, there are key aspects of Matt's recovery that remain the
same.
The Opioid Crisis: Can spirituality help heal the wounds of
addiction?
Addicts find help in
the Twelve Steps, hard work and intense prayer, or a deeper commitment to the
sacraments.
Kevin Lowry says the past five years
have been some of the toughest in his family’s life. But they have also been
years of rich spiritual growth.
The Lowry family saga began when 16-year-old Danikeyel stumbled
into his parent's bedroom in the middle of the night and slumped over the
bed.
“I’m dying,” he gasped as he begged for prayers. “I can’t
breathe.” The Lowrys’ third son was overdosing on drugs. Kevin Lowry
called 911, and an EMT crew and hospital staff saved Daniel from death. After
that, as Lowry tells it, Daniel went through lots of different approaches to
cure his addiction—counseling, physicians, treatment programs.
“But nothing really worked,” he said. “Or it was
temporary.”
Through a trusted friend, the Lowrys discovered a program in
Florida called Comunita Cenacolo. Founded in 1983 by an Italian
nun named Elvira Petrozzi, the “Community of the Cenacle,” to use its English
name, provides a structured life of work and prayer for young people who have
addiction problem.
The Lowrys found something that worked. Daniel spent four years
in the community, “graduated” and returned home. He is doing well, working and
looking to go back to school.
About 218,000 people in the United States have not been as
fortunate. That’s the number, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, who have died from overdoses related to prescription opioids since
1999. And while more than 2 million Americans are thought to be addicted to
opioids, there are only 4,000 U.S. physicians who are addiction specialists,
says the American Society of Addiction
Medicine.
Treating addicts takes a variety of forms. In recent years,
there’s been an increased interest in cognitive behavioral therapy, general
counseling and medication-assisted treatment, said Dr. Marc Galanter, Professor
of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine.
Some treatment options, like Cenacolo, also try to address
addiction-related issues in a spiritual way or through a spiritual
lens.
The “12 steps,” which are the basis of Alcoholics Anonymous and
many similar programs, are perhaps the best known spiritual-based treatment
option.
“They provide a spiritual outlet in which one can find a
relationship with a higher power to quell the cravings and surrender to a new
way of life, to do God’s will,” said Scott Weeman, founder of Catholic in Recovery. The ministry draws from
both the 12 steps and the sacramental life of the Church to help alcoholics and
drug addicts recover. The 12 steps can help one make an inventory of oneself in
seeking to know how one’s own behavior and attitude have caused misconduct, said
Weeman, a recovering alcoholic.
Dr. Galanter said that until about five or 10 years ago, most
treatment programs were 12 step-oriented and discussed the role of spirituality
in 12-step programs. “In recent years there’s been a tendency to give it less
prominence in their discussion of their programs. But still I would say that the
majority of residential programs and a good half of ambulatory programs do
include a significant 12-step component,” he said in an interview.
When people come to AA or Narcotics Anonymous, they tend to rely
more on the mutual support the programs offer, said Galanter, author of
Spirituality and the Healthy
Mind. “But if they get involved for the longer
term, the spiritual aspects are very prominent. So the long term members are
very much oriented toward spirituality and the sense of ‘God as we understood
him’ [a phrase from one of the 12 steps]. God as we understood him tends to be
pretty universally thought of in a spiritual way but different people define for
themselves what God as we understood him means. For some traditional people it
may be Jesus Christ; for others it may just be the AA program itself. For some
people it’s like a nature or aesthetically oriented spirituality.”
Not all drug addiction programs have a spiritual component, of
course, but for the majority, there’s “definitely a recognition and respect of
spiritual issues,” said Galanter.
For Nancy Vericker, not only did the 12 steps help with her
recovery from alcoholism, it helped her recover her cradle Catholic
faith.
“I found a deeper level of meaning when I entered a 12 step
program,” said Vericker, author of Unchained: Our Family’s Addiction Mess is Our
Message. The book, co-written with J.P. Vericker,
her son, tells the story of his opioid addiction and recovery. “It’s not like
it’s ‘Oh you get sober and you have spirituality.’ It’s the spirituality that
leads you. You rely on your higher power to reshape your mind and thinking. … It
really helped me to see the face of a loving and benevolent God. It kind of
stripped me of a sense of the institutional Church and focused me to rely on a
spiritual journey.”
Weeman, of Catholic in Recovery, sees parallels between the 12
steps and the Catholic sacramental life. The surrender to a higher power, he
says, is like a “plunge into the waters of Baptism.” The sacrament of confession
is similar to the “thorough process of reconciliation that happens within
ourselves, with God and with others, starting with that fearless and searching
moral inventory, … asking God to remove whatever defect of character or stain
that gets in the way of us knowing and serving him, and making amends to those
we have hurt.”
“From there, the process involves maintaining that spiritual
awakening by continuing to take personal inventory and promptly admitting when
we’re wrong,” Weeman continued. Prayer and meditation help improve “our
conscious contact with God as we understand him. From a Catholic standpoint
that’s most prevalent through the sacrament of the Eucharist, where we receive
the body and blood of Jesus on a regular basis so that we may be filled and may
know him in a way that surpasses any human understanding and that that continues
to seek God as the source of healing, strength, and goodness.”
Albino Aragno, who runs the Cenacolo Community outside of St.
Augustine, Florida, where Daniel Lowry lived, calls the ministry’s approach
“very structural and disciplined living, I would say almost
monastic.”
“People need order in their life, especially addicts,” Aragno
said in an interview. “They never have any structure; they’re always going up
and down, on the floor, in the situation and the emotion of the
moment.”
The strict daily schedule begins with a 6:15 wake-up, followed
by religious services, breakfast, a morning full of work, group prayer, and more
work. After supper, there’s group conversation about the Gospel of the day, and
opening up about feelings, emotions, and current situations.
“We need something more to grasp, to sustain us in life, because
with our own strength we cannot do it,” said Aragno, who himself was an early
member of Cenacolo in Italy. Prayer, which includes daily Mass, sacramental
Confession, group recitations of the Rosary, and private meditation, “opens the
conscience … and then also helps us to really develop a relationship with God,”
Aragno said. “He’s the one who’s going to help us sustain ourselves outside of
the community.”
In the midst of it all, said Lowry, author of How God Hauled Me Kicking and Screaming Into the
Catholic Church, “there’s a sense in which there’s
a character development aspect and a focus on the virtues that goes hand in hand
with the spiritual development.
Lowry said that he was shocked to hear another parent whose son
was in the Cenacle Community tell him that he would one day see his son’s
addiction as a blessing. But his words were prophetic.
“It probably turned into one of the best things that ever
happened to me spiritually and my family as well,” Lowry said. “When you have a
son or daughter in community you go to monthly support meetings, because we’re
really walking alongside them on the path.” Daniel’s addiction, he said, “became
probably the single greatest impetus for spiritual growth for my wife and me and
probably for some of our kids.”
As for Daniel, he said, “As a result of all the struggles, he’s
got a really solid spiritual life and a prayer life that I would love to see in
the [family’s seven] other kids.”
As part of the "Catholic Leaders Webcast Series," Our Sunday Visitor Publishers has available a fifty-nine minute webcast about Venerable Matt
Talbot by researcher and author Woodeene Koenig-Bricker is available on demand at
Matt
Talbot was an
ordinary poor, Dublin working man, an unskilled laborer
with very limited education who struggled
with alcoholism. But through the grace of God,
Matt was able to overcome his addiction and live a life of heroic holiness,
virtue and charity.
He
is a great witness that even in
addiction, there is hope. May we ask Matt to help those we
know in our families and community who are struggling
with addictions.
May we also ask God
to raise this humble working man to the list of Saints
in the Church for he is surely already in heaven.
In an Easter homily on resurrection by Fr. Dan
Fickesat St. Joseph
Parish in Avon Lake, Ohio, he discusses the Venerable Matt Talbot, OFS as a
former alcoholic who became known as an Irish ascetic revered by many Catholics
for his piety, charity and mortification of the flesh.
Our friend, Gregory Jakielski, is expanding his efforts
in providing information about Venerable Matt
Talbot.
In addition to providing free Matt Talbot prayer cards
in multiple countries, he has had (and continues to have) a Facebook Page and
blog in Polish and a Facebook Page in English for some
years.
Twenty two years after the death of Matt Talbot, the Calix
Society (https://www.calixsociety.org/) was founded in the
United States to help recovering Catholic alcoholics. Pope (now St.) Paul VI,
who declared Matt Talbot “Venerable,” recognized the value of this
society in 1974.
Recovering Alcoholics Find Higher Power in
the Chalice”
“AA restores your health and keeps you from an early grave.
Calix saves your soul and puts you on the road to heaven.” —William J. Montroy,
Calix Society co-forre VIunder.”
Alcoholics Anonymous offers incalculable support and guidance
for thousands of people each year. Often the life-changing impact leads
participants to seek a stronger relationship with God outside of AA. A Catholic organization for recovering alcoholics is helping
them do just that.
The Calix Society is a
Christ-centered recovery support group. Calix means “chalice” in
Latin.
A group of recovering alcoholics in Minneapolis founded the
Calix Society in 1947, after meeting weekly at the 5:30 a.m. Mass to pray for an
alcoholic priest friend. Realizing their Catholic faith was the surest path to
serenity without alcohol, they founded the organization and soon affiliated
units sprang up in 70 cities, even without a central office, website or
literature. Today there are 33 “units,” or chapters, across the U.S., one in
Ireland and one in England. Each chapter is established with the permission of
the local diocesan bishop.
Calix complements and extends the recovery efforts of AA and
Al-Anon through prayer and the sacraments. In addition to the support of
meetings and recovering friends, frequent reception of Holy Communion,
confession, personal prayer, Holy Hours, Days of Recollection and retreats
foster sanctification of the whole person.
Only when the recovering person achieves some measure of
sobriety is he or she ready for Calix. The “credo” of the society tells the
story: “Calix is an association of Catholic alcoholics who are maintaining their
sobriety through affiliation with and participation in the Fellowship of
Alcoholics Anonymous.” Co-patrons of the Calix Society are Our Lady of Recovery
and Venerable Matt Talbot.
The group’s primary concern is motivating a virtue of total
abstinence in Catholics with an alcoholic problem. The second stated purpose is
promoting spiritual development. Association and conversation together are meant
to be a source of inspiration and encouragement to each other, geared toward
growth in spiritual maturity.
Five Friends on Long Island
On Long Island, a group of five Chaminade Catholic High School
alumni had already been meeting to support each other in their sobriety. “It’s
fairly common for an AA member to have fallen away from or even completely
abandoned his faith,” one member shared. “AA has a 'higher power' or 'God as you
believe God to be. It’s non-denominational and everyone understands that. Well
we believe God to be Jesus Christ, and we find it’s impossible without Him to
stay sober. We wanted to be able to talk about God.” The five friends approached
their former school in Mineola, New York, for space for a monthly retreat, and
have been meeting weekly there ever since.
The monthly meetings included reading the Gospel and praying the
Rosary. At some point one of the men heard about the Calix Society, and wondered
if becoming part of it could reinforce what they were already doing. They
contacted the central office to inquire about becoming a local unit, and then
contacted the bishop for his permission to begin in the Diocese of Rockville
Centre.
One member had been in AA for 14 years “but he was really angry
at God,” a member said. “He'd been through some tough stuff. He hadn’t been to
confession in 27 years. Over two years with Calix, he changed
completely.”
Substituting the Cup That Sanctifies for the Cup That
Stupefies “I had a hard enough time recovering with God,” said Tom, who
helped form the new Calix unit. “I can’t possibly imagine doing this without
him, and without the Eucharist.”
Tom has been sober for 16 years and found AA helpful in
correcting the character flaws that fueled his addiction, and guiding him toward
a more fulfilling life.
“While AA does reference God throughout the literature and step
work, direct reference to religion is not encouraged,” he said. “The ‘Higher
Power’ is left to be viewed by each member individually.”
“As years passed though, I began to increasingly feel that there
was something missing in my life. I knew in my heart that it was my connection
to God but did nothing to confront those feelings. I believe now that it was my
guilt that had never really been addressed with Him that was blocking that
connection.”
Then a good friend introduced him to Calix, simply saying it was
a group of Catholic AA members focused on improving their conscious contact with
God. “This seemed to be worth exploring and so I attended my first meeting. I
had no idea at the time that my life would change from that day
forward.”
“I was a bit apprehensive that my absence from the church and
formal religion would be frowned upon but that was not at all the case. I was
welcomed and encouraged to share openly about that fear from the start... I
became hungry to learn more and more and found what had been missing in my life
— my connection with God.
“Through the encouragement of the group, I also found the
strength to go to confession for the first time in over 30 years. The feeling
of peace was overwhelming. Before long, I found myself wanting more and began to
attend Mass and receive the Eucharist every Sunday. I also learned the Rosary
and recite it regularly with some of the men in the group every Tuesday before
our meeting.
“I am a work in progress and don’t claim to be a model Catholic,
but my family and friends have noticed the changes in me and my interaction with
them. Calix has filled a void in my life and I look forward to continued
participation!”
Today is a first feast day of St. Paul VI. He was canonized in
2018.
On 3 October 1975, Pope Paul VI proclaimed the treatise on the
heroic virtues of Matt Talbot, giving the Dublin worker and recovered alcoholic the title of
"Venerable."
The top image is a bit colder but closer to the original
as it looks in natural light. The 2nd image is shot using artificial lighting.
I am not a photographer, to be sure. I wanted make an attempt to do a painting
more closely resembling the only known photograph of Venerable Matt
Talbot.
