Matt Talbot / Franciscan Tertiary

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1st December, 1933 THE CRUSADER Page 235 Matt Talbot — Franciscan Tertiary POPULAR devotion to Matt Talbot, the Dublin workingman, has spread far beyond Ireland since his lonely death on June 7th, 1925, so writes V. Rev. Augustine O'Neill, O.F.M. The facts of his life, made public through the "Life" written by Sir Joseph Glynn, have made an irresistible appeal throughout the Catholic world. Matt Talbot is an extraordinary, but by no means a unique product of the Catholic working-class of Dublin. Every priest finds in the course of his ministrations, humble hard-working people, who lead lives of great holiness. For the most part their good works are hidden, and generally they pass unnoticed through life. Matt Talbot was one of these, more typical of his class than the repulsive characters so frequently depicted by our modern playwrights and advanced writers. Were it not for the circumstances of his death, we might well have missed the beauty of this man's saintly life. The sudden death that stilled his heart was God's providential way of opening the treasures of his soul to the world and of showing "the ever-abiding principle of holiness which is in the Catholic Church." Matt Talbot lived and worked in surroundings that seemed uncongenial to holiness. He was always poor, and at no period of his life was he free from the hard grinding labour that brought him his small weekly wage. And yet these were the conditions that seemed best suited to his spiritual advancement. In spite of his poverty he practised extraordinary penances, and in the midst of his unremitting labour he devoted his time to the practice of prayer and interior recollection. We might well ask what were the formative influences in his spiritual life. We know that he was a member of various Sodalities, and that his free time was usually spent in the different churches. He must have been guided by experienced directors, and in general we may assume that he took advantage of everything that would help his spiritual progress. He must have very early seen the advantages of the Franciscan Third Order, for at the time of his death he had been a member of the congregation at Merchants' Quay for thirty-five years. The late Fr. P. J. Cleary, O.F.M., received him into the Third Order on October 12th, 1890, and admitted him to profession on October 18th, 1891. That he lived up to the letter and the spirit of the Rule is evident from what we may call a record attendance. In the first twenty years of his membership he was absent from the monthly meetings only on two occasions—once in 1899 and once in 1909: he never seems to have been absent from the monthly Communion. From 1911 to 1916 he was absent from four meetings and was excused on one occasion. In 1917, something unusual, the precise nature of which is not known, kept him from the monthly Communion from January to July, and again from September to November. He must have attended the monthly meetings during all that year, for we find him excu…