Seeking Christ Rather Than Alcohol

From the moment Matt Talbot took the pledge not to drink with a priest. Matt filled the void with God. The first three months were very challenging but he persevered for the next forty one years.

Seeking Christ

by Father Pablo

January 6, 2018

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/labmind/2018/01/seeking-christ.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Catholic&utm_content=45

Every heart searches for meaning.  Every soul longs for happiness.  We are born restless.  We are born with a void inside, a missing piece, which moves us to seek fulfillmen   We are like a beautiful and complex jigsaw puzzle with one missing piece.  Without that last piece we remain incomplete, so we tirelessly search for the piece that will complete the picture.

We often attempt to place other appealing pieces which satisfy temporarily but do not complete the puzzle correctly.  These fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying fillers may include materialism and vanity, drugs and alcohol, hedonism and egotism to name a few.  Though alluring and perhaps temporarily successful in satisfying the inner restlessness, these vices rapidly deepen the void within us.

No matter how many different pieces we use to fill that last opening, there is only one, perfectly made piece that will fit flawlessly.  Saint Augustine accurately identified it when he wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

We are created by God with a natural need for Him to reach personal fulfillment.  We will remain restless, missing that last perfectly fashioned puzzle piece, as long as we resist God.  He has created us for Himself and we need Him.

Some become so restless they run away from God, yet it is in God that fulfillment is found.  Jesus urges us to turn to Him in our restlessness with His words, “come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  He said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” and she answered, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”  In Christ alone our thirst ends, our search concludes, and we move forward with purpose. \\
 

In God we find the fulfillment of every desire of our hearts.  It is in surrendering to Him that peace is found.  It is in surrendering to Him that He will place that perfectly fashioned piece into our hearts, completing who we are.  It is in Him that the restlessness of seeking dissolves into the happiness and fulfillment of having found Him.  May the new year allow us to grow closer to Christ, enabling Him to place the perfectly fashioned puzzle piece that will fill us with peace and joy.

"No Prayer is Useless"

From the time of his conversion at age 28, Venerable Matt Talbot firmly believed that prayer was absolutely essential and, therefore, prayed for hours daily.
   

Why pray when praying doesn’t work?

Fr.Aquinas Guilbeau, OP

Jul 27, 2017

https://aleteia.org/2017/07/27/why-pray-when-praying-doesnt-work/?utm_campaign=NL_en&utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=NL_en

St. Augustine reminds us that no prayer is useless.

We learn as children that praying doesn’t always “work”: we prayed and still failed that math test, we prayed and still were ignored by our crush, we prayed and our sick grandmother never got better. As adults, our worries increase, as do our disappointments in prayer: we pray and still don’t get hired, we pray and still our spouse wanders, we pray and we ourselves never get better. So, what’s the point? Why pray for things that we want if we don’t always get them? Is God listening? Does God care?

Of course, he does. But not in the way that we might expect. To correct the common notion of God as an invisible granter of wishes, Jesus instructs us in the Sermon on the Mount: “When praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mt 6:7–8).

This is a profound statement on the nature of prayer. Jesus teaches that God never learns of our needs. Our prayer reveals nothing to him, for he already knows everything. Thus, we shouldn’t pray like the pagans, who think that their prayers introduce human need to the divine mind. Rather, our prayer should acknowledge the fact of God’s omniscient providence. “Pray then like this,” Jesus says: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. They kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven …” (Mt 6:9–10).

Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father as the all-knowing and all-powerful creator and governor of the universe. In other words, we are to pray knowing that nothing occurs in creation that escapes God’s notice. 

There is no birth nor death, no gain nor loss, no joy nor sorrow of which God remains ignorant. As Jesus says elsewhere: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s will.” No, not one of them; all unfolds within God’s providence. It can’t be otherwise. 

Consequently, Jesus assures his disciples: “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Mt 10:29–31). As creatures, we possess nothing that God fails to count.

This is a consoling truth, but our question still remains: why pray? If God is the all-knowing and all-powerful ruler of the universe—if all unfolds under his watchful eye, and if he knows what we need before we ask—then what good can praying possibly do? 

Well, it depends on what we think prayer should do. If we think that praying should change God, then our prayer is indeed useless. We’d sooner yell the bark off a tree than change God’s mind about something. But if we think that praying should change us, then we pray as Jesus taught.

Centuries ago, St. Augustine explained the mystery of Christian prayer to a noblewoman named Proba. A young widow who fled the Sack of Rome (410 AD), Proba wrote to Augustine and asked how she should pray, her life spiraling into ever greater chaos.

Augustine responded that she should pray for a happy life, which the holy bishop described thus: “He is truly happy who has all that he wishes to have, and wishes to have nothing which he ought not to wish.” 

When we offer to God all of our desires for a happy life, Augustine explained, over time our offering is purified. As we draw closer to God, and as our wills align to his, we wish more for what he wants to give us and less for what we want to give ourselves. Praying does not change God, therefore; it changes us—in our hearts and in our desires. 

“The Lord our God requires us to ask not that thereby our wish may be intimated to Him, for to Him it cannot be unknown,” Augustine explained, “but in order that by prayer there may be exercised in us by supplications that desire by which we may receive what He prepares to bestow.” 

In other words, we pray always and in every situation not to alert God of our needs, but so that we might grow in our desire for the good things that God wants to give us for a happy life, leading up to eternal life.  

The mystery of Christian prayer as Augustine described it unfolds even in situations of great distress. In moments of trouble or trauma, we might not know how to pray as we ought, asking God simply to remove the cause of our trouble. Augustine granted that this prayer is natural and common. But in those moments, Augustine continued, “we ought to exercise such submission to the will of the Lord our God, that if He does not remove those vexations we do not suppose ourselves to be neglected by Him, but rather, in patient endurance of evil, hope to be made partakers of greater good, for so His strength is perfected in our weakness.” 

When troubled, we pray for the removal of our trouble, though acknowledging all the while that the trouble itself may provide a path to some greater good. In order to pray this kind of prayer, we can look to a reliable model: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Mt 26:39).

No prayer is useless, therefore. At any given moment, our prayer manifests either a heart aligning to God’s will or a heart already aligned to it. In either case, we pray confidently as creatures of a provident God, who wills that nothing of his ever be lost (Jn 6:39).

Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P., serves as senior editor of Aleteia English.


Note:  For some very simply prayers see 

 http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/25928/simple-prayers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dotMagis+%28dotMagis+-+Ignatian+Spirituality%29

The Dublin Mystic: Matt Talbot

by K. V. Turley*

March 17, 2016

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

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

Unknown Man’s Death

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Reading the Bible

From the time of Matt Talbot’s conversion and abstaining from alcohol, he read (and marked) his Bible daily and the writings of such authors as St. Augustine. When he didn’t understand a passage, he would seek clarification from his spiritual director.

The Bible contains keys to right living that Matt applied and we can apply immediately: do unto others what you would have them do unto you, turn the other cheek, and honor your father and mother. But it’s more than just a self-help book. The most important aspect of God’s word is its ability to bring us face-to-face with Jesus, who is the living Word of God.

Augustine was raised by a Christian mother and was probably familiar with many of the stories and teachings in the Bible. But it wasn’t until he had a personal experience of God speaking to him through Scripture that his life turned around. 


What happened for Augustine can happen for us. If we spend time with the word of God every day—not just reading it but pondering it, praying through it, and listening to it—we’ll begin to find Jesus. Our hearts will be stirred by what we read, and the words will begin to come alive for us, as if they were written just for us. We’ll hear Jesus speaking them to us, showing us how they apply to our own situations and filling our hearts with freedom and hope.

Matt Talbot: from alcohol to holiness

by Fr. Brian Schieber 

St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Parish

Leawood, KS

First Sunday of Lent Year B 

February 22, 2015

http://www.stmichaelcp.org/images/stories/Homily/2015_Fr._Brian_/Matt_Talbot.pdf

Matt Talbot has been declared Venerable which means he on the way to hopefully becoming a canonized saint.

Matt Talbot was born in Dublin Ireland in 1856. He was one of 12 children. At the time in Ireland school attendance was not in force so Matt rarely attended school. At the age of 12, he got a job in a wine shop. It was there that Matt began “sampling the wares,” which started him on a journey of excessive drinking for the next 16 years. For those 16 years, he lived for booze. After working in the wine shop, he started working in a whiskey shop making things even worse. All of his wages he spent on drinking. He frequented the pubs and became such a down and out drunk that he even pawned his clothes and boots to get money for alcohol. Once he even stole a fiddle from a blind street musician.

One day, penniless, he was standing outside a pub waiting for someone to buy him a drink. Frustrated that no one would, he received a flash of grace and recognized what a pitiful life he was living. He went home and told his mother that he was taking the pledge. She had been praying earnestly for his conversion. At the age of 28 he found a priest, made his confession, and then the next day he went to Mass and received Communion which did every day for the rest of his life until he died at the age of 69 in 1925 of a heart attack on his way to morning Mass.

Living the life of sobriety was not easy. He wrote to his sister, “Never look down on a man who cannot give up the drink. It is easier to get out of hell.” It was the grace of God that set him free. He had support and accountability. And he did more than resist the urge to drink – he lived a life of penance and self-discipline. He slept on a plank, fasted, and wore chains around his waist and arm and leg as a symbol of his devotion and desire to be a slave of Mary.

On this first Sunday of Lent we hear Jesus say to us, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Repent means to make a turn in your life. Turn away from sin and turn toward Christ. Matt Talbot made a huge life-saving turn in his life. All of us, no matter where we are on our spiritual journey, are called to deepening repentance. As we begin Lent, take time to honestly reflect: what are the sins that are binding me? What do I need to let go of in my life? Then I’m asking all of us to do something very important for Lent – please make a good confession! That was really the beginning of Matt Talbot’s conversion.

The Church holds up for us three traditional disciplines of Lent to help us in our on-going process of conversion: prayer, fasting, almsgiving

.

I want to talk about fasting first. Why do we fast? We fast in imitation of Jesus. We see in the gospel that the Holy Spirit led Jesus out into the desert where he fasted. What happens when we you fast? You get hungry! What happens in the desert? You get thirsty. Fasting or giving something up for lent is meant to awaken the deepest hunger and thirst in our life: the thirst for God. Alcohol could not quench Matt Talbot’s deepest thirst. In fact in only led him into the throws of addiction. It was only Jesus and his reception of Jesus in daily Communion that satisfied and set him free. Fasting can help us turn to Jesus. Every time we have a desire to have that desert or soda or coffee that we gave up, it gives us an opportunity to choose Jesus over whatever we gave up.

Second, Almsgiving – our sacrifices should lead to the aide of the poor. After Matt Talbot’s conversion he was known for his generosity. He repaid all of his debts. He tried to find the man from whom he stole the fiddle and unable to find him donated money to the church to have Masses offered for him. Even though he was poor himself, he gave generously to the poor, to charities, and to the Church.

We still have the rice-bowls available after Mass. The idea is that you take the money you would have saved on whatever you give up for Lent and you put it in the rice-bowl to help the poor.

Can I make one other practical suggestion of what we can all do for Lent? Catholic Charities has provided a clothing bin for us that we have put on the north side of the church. Please take time this lent to clean out your closet and donate clothes for the poor.

At our administrative team meetings with the Archbishop, we are taking a few minutes before the meeting to reflect on Pope Francis’ letter called Joy of the Gospel. What struck me this week were these words by Pope Francis: “Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading.” We so often are blessed with abundance which sadly can lead to waste. It could be a beautiful Lenten resolution to say, “I’m going to work hard not to waste food.” Or before we buy something to say, “Do I really need another  one of these?” Simplify your life. Clean out your closet for Lent!

Finally, prayer. It was by the grace of God that Matt Talbot was set free. Conversion goes hand and hand with prayer. The image of the desert provides us with insight. The desert is free of distractions.

Blase Paschal said most of the time human beings seek diversion in life. We easily get caught up in the world through images, ads, media, music, idle conversations, and the constant borage of sensory pleasures available to us. We are drawn out into the world to the neglect of our interior life – our spiritual life.

St. Augustine: Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. St. Augustine searched for God in the pleasures of the world to the neglect of his interior life. If I’m going to be cultivating my interior life – my prayer life – what is necessary?

Silence! I have to unplug. What a beautiful thing to do for lent – create a desert space in your life. Unplug the TV, computer games, IPad, the cell phone, the IPod and enter into the silence.

Take home a copy of the Word Among Us. You can reflect on the daily readings for Mass. It also has a daily meditation. Consider praying the rosary as a family. Come to the Stations of the Cross on Fridays.

As the story of Matt Talbot circulated, his life gave hope to so many. Now there are countless addiction clinics, recovery centers and youth hostels named after him. Matt Talbot made a turn in his life. Now is the time to repent. Let us take up fasting, almsgiving, and prayer and turn back to God with all our hearts.

Two Models of Change

"We should contribute"

The Catholic Messenger 

November 6, 2014  

http://www.catholicmessenger.net/2014/11/we-should-contribute/

"The saints in Christian history are models for almost any kind of human behavior. Some, like the great Augustine and the modern Irishman, Venerable Matt Talbot, are also models of change. They showed that early wildness does not define a life. The worst cad and drunk can become someone worth imitating for virtue.

At last month’s synod on marriage and family in Rome, some of the bishops spoke of such change as a “gradualism” recognized by the Catholic Church. Some other bishops at the synod worried that such talk is dangerous. People could misunderstand it as tolerance of poor judgment and a careless attitude toward virtue in youth.

St. Augustine is famous for praying, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” This was during his early dissolute years. He finally reached that goal, but not until after fathering a child and leaving the mother. He had been drawn to Christianity even as a young man, and he knew how to pray. Even in his wandering he was listening for the movement of God in his life. But Augustine’s move from reckless playboy to Christian hero — with the title Doctor of the Church — was made gradually, at his own personal pace.

Matt Talbot’s story is similar. He lived from 1856 to 1925 as a laborer in Dublin. In his early teen years he began drinking any liquor he could get, borrowing money for drinks, even stealing when the money ran out. After 16 years of this he made a pledge of sobriety, kept it, and became known for quiet kindness and charity to fellow workers. When he dropped dead on a Dublin street at the age of 69, he was found with a small chain wrapped around his body. It turned out that he had worn this for years as a practice of penance and self-control.

There are people who seem to move through life on a steady ladder of growth in virtue. For most of us, the story is different. We rise and fall, stumble, slip, rise and fall. And keep hoping, keep growing in our own ragged way, like Augustine and Matt Talbot...”

Notes: 

A woman who spent over two decades as a self-described ‘low bottom’ drug and alcohol addict and is now in recovery and practicing her religious faith again has recently stated that “I know now what I didn’t know before, that life doesn’t have to stay the same.  For years I didn’t know I had a choice to live any other way. Now I know that I have a daily choice.”

One of the many spiritual books that Matt Talbot read in sobriety was Confessions by St. Augustine.

"Our hearts are restless..."

[One of the many spiritual books that Matt Talbot read in sobriety was Confessions by St. Augustine, and Matt could certainly relate to the quoted first sentence below. 

Based on this book we learn about his mother, St Monica, who is frequently listed as a patron for alcoholics.]

Reflection on the Feast of St. Augustine 

GuestHouse Blog

 August 28, 2013

“You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”  This famous line from the pen of Augustine resonates in the heart of everyone, maybe most especially in the heart of those of us in recovery.

Augustine led a dissolute life before his conversion to Christianity.  His life story in his “Confessions” bespeaks many of our own errant ways before getting into sobriety.  It was only through the insistent prayer of Augustine’s mother, Monica, that he received the grace to turn his life around.  How many of us had the same kind of mother who fretted over us, who expressed alarm at our waywardness and yet kept hope through prayer that we would “turn around.”  I credit my own mother, Lord rest her soul, who interceded mightily for me after her death.

Yet now we realize that God and His Spirit was with us all the time, even in our darkest days and nights.  We can now say, as Augustine did, “late have I loved You, O Beauty both so ancient and so new!  And behold You were with me all the time.”

Today we make our own the Psalm of David, Ps 139:

You have searched me and you know me, Lord

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

From Your presence where can I flee?

If I go up to the heavens, You are there;

If I sink to the nether world, You are present there.

If I take the wings of the dawn,

If I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

Even there Your hand shall guide me,

And Your right hand hold me fast.

If I say, surely the darkness shall hide me,

And night shall be my light –

For You darkness itself is not dark,

And night shines as the day.

You have searched me and You know me, Lord.