“So the faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin may confidently say with St. John Damascene, “If I confide in you , Mother of God, I shall be saved. Under your protection I shall fear Nothing. With your help I shall rout all my enemies. For devotion to you is a weapon of salvation which God gives to those he wishes to save” (Joan. Damas. Ser. De Annuntiat).” “182, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin”, St. Louis Marie de Montfort
Dubliners were celebrating the end of the war in the Crimea in May of 1856 when Matthew Talbot was born to Charles and Elizabeth Talbot. Baptised on the 5th of May Matt was the second eldest of the ten surviving children of the twelve born to Elizabeth in the tenement slums of inner city Dublin. The young priest who baptised Matt in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral died of fever within months, after tending to the spiritual welfare of the poor of the area. Charlie, Matt’s Father was a hard drinking man who worked in the Customs House bonded warehouse and as a result of his incipient addiction his wife went to work as a char to earn more money for the struggling family.
Matt did not attend school until his eleventh year. There was no compulsary education at the time and most children attended school in order to be prepared for the sacraments. Matt attended the O Connell school in North Richmond Street but only for a year as due to the families near penury he was required to mind his younger siblings while his mother went out to work. The pressure placed on the family by its head no doubt was the catalyst for Matt’s taking up employment at the age of twelve bottling stout and porter supplying the local pubs. He left school with little education and quickly became addicted to the liquor he was bottling. His father took him to work in the warehouse in order to keep an eye on him but the course of Matts life was set and from that point to his rejection of alcohol in his late twenties he was addicted.
Like most addicts he was only focussed on getting his next fix and was not beyond stealing in order to supply his need. He also pawned his boots and clothes, sometimes walking barefoot in order to get money to feed his habit. His attendance at Mass on Sundays became the only sign that he was a Catholic but he had otherwise stopped practicing the Faith or receiving the sacraments.
One evening in 1884 the 28-year old Talbot, who was penniless and out of credit, waited outside a pub in the hope that somebody would invite him in for a drink. After several friends had passed him without offering to stand him a pint, he went home in disgust and announced to his mother that he was going to take the pledge. He walked to Holy Cross College Clonliffe the Dublin Archdiocesan seminary, where a priest heard his confession and he took the pledge for three months. At the end of the three months, he took the pledge for six months, then for life. From this point until the end of his life he remained sober.
Matt worked all his life as an unskilled labourer. Employment in his early years was casual and if an employer or foreman didn’t like you this could mean being laid off. There was no social welare and with thousands of men in similar positions employers could pick and choose who they liked. In later life Matt joined the builder’s labourers branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and was on strike during the Dublin lockout of 1913.
From the day he decided to renounce his addiction to alcohol he became determined to live a different life. He made some efforts to make restitution to those he had offended, repaying outstanding debts at pubs he had frequented and searching for a blind fiddler who Matt and his brothers had robbed of his instrument in order to sell it for the wherewithall to buy drink. He searched in vain but eventually had masses offered for the musicians soul when the search proved fruitless. He gave his wages to his Mother and attempted to reform his brothers behaviour, but to no avail. In the end he decided to move out of the family home and rented a small flat a few streets away.
While living at his new address Matt joined the newly founded Pioneer Total Abstinance Association of the Sacred Heart, founded by Fr James Cullen SJ in the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street. He found the association a great source of encouragement and support and it gave him the opportunity to assist others through his offering of prayers. Matt eventually ended up living with his mother after his father died in 1889 and Elizabeth Talbot spent the last years of her life living with her son who more than made up for his youthful callousness.
While Matt would not have been familiar with the idea of a spiritual director, he nonetheless knew that he needed guidance and this he received from Fr. James Walsh who was in charge of the mens Sodality in Gardiner Street Church from 1884 to 1913. Although he had practically no schooling as a child he built up a collection of books under the direction of Fr. Walsh including St. Louis’ “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin”. When he found a passage difficult he would copy it out and pass it to the priest after his confession who would explain it to him. His favourite books in the old testament were the Psalms and Wisdom. Prayer and lectio divina became the great antidote and replacement for his former addiction.
In 1913 Fr. Walsh died. He was a great loss to Matt as he had helped Matt learn to read and and guided him through his most difficult and challenging years. However Matt was fortunate to find another priest to guide him in the person of Mgr Michael Hickey of Clonliffe, where he had first gone to renounce his former life and return to the sacraments.
On June 7th 1925, Trinity Sunday of that year, Matt having been to 5.30 am Mass in Gardiner Street and returned home for his meagre breakfast, was on his way to 10.00 Mass in Dominic Street when he collapsed and died. As nobody was able to identify him at the scene he was taken to Jervis Street Hospital where the body was undressed revealing the chains he wore on his body. These were a mark of his devotion to Our Lady and were inspired by the Jesuit tradition known as Mancipium Mariae (slave of Mary), a devotion that involved the recitation of certain prayers and the wearing of a chain with the inscription “Ego Mancipium Mariae”.
The details of his life and his repution for sanctity were circulating very quickly after Matts death and when a book about his life written by Sir Joseph Glynn was published in 1927 by the Catholic Truth Society his fame spread around the world. The cause for his beatification was opened in 1930 and Pope Paul Vl declared him Venerable in 1975.
At first glance it appears that Matt Talbots life has little that resonates with our age. The times he lived in seem unimaginable to us who live in such comfort. However our world holds a vast number of broken people and souls in need of care and the example of Matts life holds out hope for those struggling with addiction. His course of action in a remarkable number of ways bears uncanny resmblance to AA’s 12 step program. This program created by two addicts in 1935 has at it’s heart the humble acceptance of one’s weakness and on ones dependance on God. A few of the steps illustrate how Matt Talbot’ life prevised this.
The person with addiction;
“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”.
“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. (Examination of conscience)”
“Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs”. (Confession)
“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others”. (Restitution)
“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out”.
Matt Talbot lived a lot of this but as a Catholic and a devoted slave of the Blessed Virgin. St Louis stated that “I look forward to a great legion of brave and valiant soldiers of Jesus and Mary, of both sexes to combat the world the devil and corrupted nature in these more than ever perilous times which are to come”.
Gerard Brady
The Poor Knights of Christ in Ireland and the UK 