MATT TALBOT, TERESA AND THERESE

Venerable Matt Talbot

June 19 is the feast of Matt Talbot, the Dublin native, who died 101 years ago. For 15 years, Talbot was an extreme alcoholic, before he took the pledge of total abstinence, and found asceticism the cure for his addiction. Now, Talbot is renowned as the patron of alcoholics and addicts. 

I learned in the book, Matt Talbot, The Irish Worker’s Glory  that the laborer had been most devoted to Teresa of Avila and St Therese of Lisieux. Therese was canonized only 3 weeks before Talbot's death. But some time before, Matt Talbot who worked at a timber yard as a hod carrier, carrying sacks of wood over his back, gave a week's wages towards the construction of her shrine at the Carmelite Church, Clarendon Street, Dublin.

Therese was not canonized at the time of his big donation, and it shows tremendous faith in her intercession that he gave such a handsome financial gift.  Dublin was filled with people who subsisted in grinding poverty, and Talbot, a single bachelor who did not have a wife and family to support, was endlessly generous with many. 

Years ago, a dear friend of mine, a young cloistered nun, asked me if I had a copy of The Irish Worker's Glory, and I had to admit I didn't, and when we looked it up, the cost at the time was prohibitively expensive, it was several hundred dollars. 

St Anthony came to the rescue, and just recently I bought a copy for under 20 bucks, and I was able to present it as a surprise gift to Sister. 

Then there was another seemingly out-of-nowhere appearance of Therese. Last night, for the first time ever, I watched the 1990 film, The Field, which I've avoided for decades because it is a multi-layered tragedy, and at the 50 minute mark, there is a scene in the parish priest's house with an altar of St Therese prominently in the background. 

 A very blessed and joyful feast of Venerable Matt Talbot to ye all. Instead of a glass of wine, I will raise a cup of hot tea to my fellow Irish citizen. He was one fine lad.

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This post was informed by Rev. James F. Cassidy's The Irish Worker's Glory, Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1934, page 40-41.