Venerable Matt Talbot

I use a daily devotional called Give Us This Day.  If anyone is looking for a daily devotional with the readings for the daily, prayers for both the morning and the evening, a daily reflection, and a blessed person (“saint”) of the day, I whole-heartedly recommend this wonderful publication. 

Earlier this week, the blessed person of the day that they named was an Irishman named Matt Talbot who lived from 1856 to 1925. Matt was not a priest or a famous theologian.  He was not rich or powerful.  He was not even well educated – he had to drop out of school after only a few years of schooling.  Barely a teenager, he became an alcoholic, an addiction that consumed his life for many years.  Then he had a deep conversion and change of heart. He took at pledge not to drink, but in the years that immediately followed that, life was a struggle for sobriety.  He went to daily mass.  He devoted his life to prayer.  He tried to make amends to the people he harmed or to those from whom he borrowed money.  He worked as a laborer and construction worker, but he also lived as a Secular Franciscan layman and followed a path of strict penance. 

Saints are not perfect human beings, but they are human being who overcame struggles and challenges in life to live a life of faith that are great examples from all of us.  Many people in our society struggle from alcoholism and other addictions.  Matt Talbot, who was named Venerable by Pope Paul VI in 1975, may be seen as a patron saint of those struggling with addiction and alcoholism.  Here at our parish of St James in Tupelo, we have a wonderful group of men who run an Alcoholics Anonymous program four days a week.  I admire their work in bringing hope and healing in the lives of others, using their experiences to help those who are struggling with the same things in their lives.  As disciples of Christ, that is exactly what we are called to do.