Caption Archbishop Dermot Farrell is Archbishop of Dublin (Catholic Communications Office archive)
Homily during Mass to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the Venerable Matt Talbot “a person of hope and faith and charity”
Homily
Matt Talbot – Apostle of Hope
Friends, in a real sense it is Matt Talbot himself who gathers us here this afternoon! Nobody would be more surprised than Matt to see the crowd than this man who came to know the darkness and the depths to which addiction can bring the person. Born in the poverty of Dublin’s inner city, Matt Talbot began drinking at twelve years of age and became a chronic alcoholic. After sixteen years, aged 28, he decided to ‘kick the habit’.
In the mystery of his life, the Lord had knocked on Matt’s door, and his turning to his Lord, ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’ (John 14:6), became the way for him to fight, and overcome, his addition. His rediscovery of his Lord and his active participation in the life of the Church – some might use the word ‘conversion,’ his turning to prayer, his reconnection with the Eucharist and the community that gathered for it, were central to his recovery.
We are reminded that the spiritual and the physical dimensions of the person go hand-in-hand in the renewal and rebuilding of life. Matt once said to his sister, “Never think harshly of a person because of the drink. It is easier to get out of hell than it is to give up the drink.” He then continued, “For me, it was only possible with the help of God and our Blessed Mother.” Matt’s life became one of prayer, penance, fasting and acts of charity. His journey to recovery was also a journey to the heart of what the Church and our mission is: a witness to the power of Christ for us and in us, a service of others – especially the poor – and a place where people can be with each as they are.
The Human and Health Phenomenon of Addiction
A homily is not the place for a medical, or psychological analysis. However, it is important that we name what addiction is, in a constructive, and non-judgemental way. Addiction is a disease that occurs in every part and level of society, and in every professional field; and when we don’t hide from it we, who are clergy and religious, need to include ourselves there as well. It requires timely intervention and the provision of help to give those at risk, or already suffering from addiction, a realistic chance of remaining part of their families, of their social and professional environments, or returning to them by their own initiative.
Persistent denial and concealment, as well as a lack of insight into the illness on the part of the person affected, combined with a frequent lack of willingness to co-operate, are typical characteristics of addiction. We need not to be naïve about the complexity of what is involved. Substance addictions lead to resentment and bigotry, to a coarsening of life and relationships, and they confuse illusion and hope. It has to be said that anyone affected by addiction who endeavours to live a life of abstinence needs special support from within their families, their networks of friends and, if they have work, from their employer and colleagues.
We Cannot Be Indifferent to Addiction
Denial and concealment also extends to the more subtle forms of addiction, to various types of gambling, to pornography, and to our engagement with the virtual world.
Behind every addiction there are concrete experiences, stories of suffering, loneliness, inequality, exclusion, lack of integration, and loss of dignity. Too easily, we ignore the misery inflicted in our country on parents, spouses and children of parents who drink too much to numb the pain of life they find impossible to bear.
And many young people also pursue the illusion of finding, in alcohol or drug use, a suspension from anguish and lack of meaning. As a society we need to ask ourselves how, what may be recreationally “acceptable” finances the networks and the violence from which we all recoil.
Matt Talbot – A Person of Hope and Faith and Charity
Today we mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Matt Talbot. We give thanks for his life, his faith, and his witness. We give thanks for this life of his that touches us, for the hope he has brought to thousands of people who suffer from additions, and to those that carry them, often at great cost.
I would like to reflect with you for a few moments on Matt, the person of faith. Sometimes when we speak about people and their faith, we have a type of two-track approach: we have the person, on one side, as it were, and then we have their faith somewhere else almost like another layer to them, as if the person were some type of sandwich that we could separate out. But human beings are one, full of all kinds of tensions, contrasts, contradictions, and surprises.
Matt Talbot is a radical witness to the oneness of the person, and the deep unity that is to be found in genuine faith, indeed that is brought about by genuine faith. When “he comes to himself” (see Luke 15:17), Matt is his faith, and his faith is Matt. Matt came to know what is to be, not only inspired and supported, but carried by what he would call “the grace of God.” “If I can do it, so can you, with the grace of God,” he would say, with a conviction born of experience.
Matt’s piety may be of his time, and perhaps of his personality. But there is no doubting that what lay at its centre – his confidence and trust in God, and his closeness to the Blessed Virgin, his dedication and his charity – in other words: his faith in itself and in its expression in his life is something that sustained the change that Matt sought in his life. “If I can do it, so can you, with the grace of God,” said Matt. “I can do all things in him who strengthens me, says Saint Paul (Phil 4:13). Matt Talbot had tasted the hope that Christ brings, and not only did that hope sustain him, but his life permitted – and permits – others to taste that real hope as well. Is this not why we are here today?
The Character of Christian Hope
Last January in his message for World Day of Social Communications, Pope Francis put before us the reality of hope in all our lives. Quoting the French writer, Georges Bernanos (1888–1948), he said “only those who have had the courage to despair of the illusions and lies in which they once found security, and which they falsely mistook for hope, are capable of hope … Hope is a risk that must be taken. … Hope is a hidden virtue, tenacious and patient. For Christians, it is not an option but a condition necessary [for life]… It is not a passive optimism, but a virtue capable of changing our lives.” (Pope Francis, Message for the 59th Day of Social Communications, January 24, 2025)
When Matt took the pledge, his life began to change. It cannot have been easy. Coming to terms with the illusions of our lives is never easy. Coming to terms with the delusional hope that addiction brings is painful and slow. Without genuine hope, it is impossible. Pope Benedict captured it well: “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.” (Spe Salvi, §2). Our faith “is not a consoling opium, soothing us with the promise of a better world in a life to come. [Christian] hope does not point to another world. It is focused on the redemption of this world.” (Jürgen Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today’s World [Fortress Press, 1994], 81). Matt knew that redemption first-hand. He mightn’t have been able to name it, but he knew the resurrection first-hand. This is our faith. “You brother was dead, and lives again, he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:32).
Authentic Hope – A Community Project
Hope does not make things easy, but hope make things possible, especially in overcoming addiction where relapses are par for the course, and we have often to begin over and over again. As someone put it, “Matt was a bad alcoholic, but he was not a hopeless alcoholic.” Nobody does this on their own. Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine. We live in the shelter of each other. But there is more: “we must regain the conviction that we need each another” – the words of Pope Francis exactly ten years ago in Laudato Sì, his wake-up call, that we come to see that the crisis of this one planet we share, our only home, the scandals of exclusion and poverty, but also the future and the hope robbed from our children, are all but parts of the one crisis. “We must regain,” he said, “the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and our world, and that being good and decent are worth it.” (LS, 229) Everybody wins! “Hope is always a community project!” [Pope Francis, “Message for World Day of Social Communications,” January 24, 2025] Hope and community go hand in hand. Isolation undermines hope; it brings darkness and despair in its wake. “You brother was dead … your sister was dead … they were lost.” Like the Father in Jesus’ great parable of the Two Lost Sons (Luke 15:11–32), may we have the strength and the patience never to give up on those who have still “to come to themselves” (Luke 15:17). But more: may we have the courage to go out and name it for those whose stance is exclusion and blame. We’re all in this together: “we have sisters and brothers who are dead, who need our help to come to life again.” “They are lost, and without us they will not be found.”
Venerable Matt Talbot, pray for us,
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us,
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us. Amen.
ENDS
- This homily was delivered by Archbishop Dermot Farrell during the celebration of Mass at 3.00pm today in Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin.