Whenever I read the Gospels, I am always moved by the small conversations of Christ.

Not the fiery exchanges with the Pharisees, nor the more intimate revelations shared with his close friends and followers, but the one-off interactions he had with the men and women he encountered in his ministry. The woman he met at the well, bearing her burden of shame under the midday sun. The short and despised tax collector, who wanted to meet Christ but felt the weight of his own unworthiness. These small moments within the Gospels reveal the God who truly knows his children’s hearts, and can heal the wounds left by a life of sin, lived in the margins of society, if he is allowed.

Venerable Matt Talbot spent the first 30 years of his life as one of these poor invisibles, mired in his own brokenness. He lived in the shadows of Dublin at the turn of the 20th century. Born into a large, poor family with an alcoholic father, Matt left school at age 12 to go work for a local wine merchant, and by the time he was a teenager he was already a heavy drinker. For the next 15 years, Matt’s life followed a pattern known too well amongst the tenement districts of Dublin. He went to work as a manual laborer at different jobs around the city, and at the workday’s end, he would head straight to the pub. There he would spend every cent he had earned, drinking himself into oblivion.

Later, Matt would recall that even in the depths of his intoxication, he would sometimes mumble his way through a few Hail Marys as he came home, the words a relic from his childhood years attending Mass and praying the Rosary with his family. He had long ago stepped away from the faith, but he could never quite let go of his love for Mary. Mary of course, never lets go of any of her children. This troubled young Irishman had been entrusted to her from the Cross, and so she held onto him, tenderly holding the flailing tendrils of his faith until he would allow her to bring him to her Son.

Short on cash one evening, Matt expected his drinking buddies to cover his tab for the night. To his surprise, no one offered to buy him a drink and, sulking, he returned home. Yet for some reason, his anger turned to resolve. We can never know what occurred in the inner workings of Matt’s heart that evening, but I can imagine Christ tried once more to talk to him. Just as he had done for every broken man and woman we see in the Gospels, Christ sought again to bring his beloved child back to himself. This time, perhaps softened by his muttered behests to Jesus’ mother over the years, Matt turned towards his Creator.

The next morning, Matt informed his mother that he would be taking “the pledge,” a vow to stay sober for three months. Barely allowing herself to hope that her son may yet escape alcoholism’s clutches, Matt’s mother was supportive but cautious. The next morning he made his first confession in over a decade, and the following day found him at Mass. The three months of sobriety turned into years. Old debts were repaid, amends made, and Matt adopted a strict regimen of fasting, prayer and penance in atonement for his indulgent past. Despite the invitations of former friends, who did not understand his revitalized faith, Matt doggedly avoided his old haunts, often slipping into empty churches to pass the long evening hours he used to spend in bars. Life was still hard and money scarce, but every day, Matt made the quiet, heroic choice to honor his vow and to lean on the sacraments and the Rosary instead of the bottle. He continued to work, and gave much of his earnings to charity. The little time he spent outside of prayer and Mass, he dedicated himself to helping others heal from alcoholism.

In 1925, after 40 years sober and decades of quiet, steadfast faith, Matt Talbot died of a heart attack while walking to Mass. Four decades before, Christ had met him in the midst of his lonely, pained life. Like all of the men and women who met Jesus on the roads of Galilee and Judea, Matt Talbot had the opportunity to duck his head and shrink away from the grace that was offered to him. Instead, as the Samaritan woman and the taxpayer did, he humbled himself and allowed Christ to transform him.

Venerable Matt Talbot, pray for us!