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 T...
