Matt
Talbot healing mass proposed
The
spirit of Matt Talbot is being invoked at a new initiative called ‘Lent-a-Hand’
which takes place at St.Philip’s Church, Mountview starting on
11th February, the first Monday of Lent. It is described as a healing
mass for all the pain suffered from problems of alcoholism and other
drugs in the community in Dublin 15. 
Fr. Diarmuid Connolly, retired Parish Priest of Castleknock describes
as distressing the “hand-wringing that goes on in our society
over drugs and alcohol related problems.” He believes that Matt
Talbot, from a Dublin labourer background, provides an ideal inspirational
figure for people who have encountered such problems. He says that Talbot
overcame his own chronic addiction “using the Lord and Eucharist
as his main source of strength.”
Matt Talbot was born into the poverty of Dublin's inner city in the
middle of the nineteenth century. He lived with his mother in tenement
Dublin and they moved eighteen times during his youth through a life
of hardship and extreme poverty. He began drinking at twelve years of
age, starting with beer before moving on to spirits and becoming a chronic
alcoholic in just a few years.
In his enormous difficulties overcoming his problems, a priest helped
him, giving him a rehabilitation programme which essentially incorporated
the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, fifty years before AA was
founded.
After a horrendous struggle, he found sobriety through prayer and self-sacrifice
and remained sober for forty years until his death. His life story has
already been an inspiration for alcoholics and addicts throughout the
world and he has been considered by two Popes for canonisation in the
Catholic Church. He died in 1925.
The mass in Mountview will take place on each Monday up to and including
the 10th March.
Requests and petitions to be prayed for can be sent to P.O. Box 11239,
Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.
Community Voice, Media
House, Church Avenue, Blanchardstown,
Dublin 15
Phone +353 1 822 1432 - Fax +353 1 640 4444
info@communityvoice.ie
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