The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (35 page)

Supper was my first meal with the Community. We eat our food in silence, although we are usually read to at mealtime from books selected by Mother Benedict. The day I entered was the feast of Corpus Christi, when recorded music takes the place of the reading. On feast days, a small amount of wine is served. It might as well have been Old Taylor on my nervous, empty and sleep-deprived stomach. At the end of the meal, I rose too quickly, forgetting I was still pinned to my napkin. The plate flipped onto the table. In a frantic attempt to keep it from falling to the floor, I kicked over my stool. The quiet of the refectory was shattered. I stood there, mortified, waiting for a harsh reaction to my clumsiness. But all I heard were a few barely audible giggles from those who, I guessed, had been there and done that
.

—
Postulants still fall prey to the treachery of the pinned napkin, and we all can’t help but wait for that moment to happen
.

Somewhere along the line, I received the books I would study, four in all
: Antiphonal, Psalter, Gradual
and
Breviary.
These would guide my way through the chants of the Divine Office
.

Because I was not expected to attend Matins at 1:50
A.M.
, the last Office of the day for me was Compline at 7:40
P.M.
Compline is sung in the chapel in the dark. It is the only Office that can be sung with eyes closed because it is the same every day, and you don’t have to refer to your book
.

Mother Miriam escorted me to my cell and said good night. I was finally alone. For the first time since I walked through the Great Gate, I thought about Mom and the deep pain she must be feeling, and I couldn’t pick up a phone and comfort her
.

I undressed and got into bed. Suddenly I was consumed with overwhelming loneliness
.

All through the hectic months of preparation, I was being held to my decision by a life source far beyond my own self. My experience of God ever since my conversion to the Church had always been intensely personal. From the moment I accepted, as a child on my “death bed”, that I had God’s favor to speak directly to Him, I came to depend on His abiding
presence.

That presence disappeared when I walked through the gate
.

I knew absolutely that everything that had ever happened to me had not been the result of luck or coincidence or my own doing. Everything had resulted from the presence of God in my life. When I told the sister at school that I wanted to have bread with the other children, and she mistook my request for a desire to receive the Eucharist, that was God’s will. When I stood, unmoving, on that Manhattan corner and felt compelled to go to Regina Laudis, that was His will. And when I stopped Mother Placid in the refectory that evening, that too was His will
.

But God, who had nurtured me all along the way to this very moment, was no longer there. I could not
feel
His presence. Had I been childish in my awareness of God’s omnipotence and fatherly protection
?

I lay awake on the cot for a long time. I reached out my arm in the darkness. I could touch the opposite wall with my hand. I lay there, terrified by the enormity of the step I had taken. I began praying as hard as I could that, in spite of the isolation engulfing me, the love in my heart was God Himself trying to strike, if not lightning, at least a match
.

I cried myself to sleep that night. I would cry myself to sleep every night for the next three years
.

Twenty

It was hard to believe that I was going to be in one place for the rest of my life. I would come to know that being in the monastery is never being in the same place—not ever in the same place in the same way
.

When you live in the center, you find that everything around you changes with amazing reliability. If there is one thing you can be sure of, it is change. That is the lesson of real stability
.

Stability, however, was not a condition that related to me that first morning. My night’s rest had hardly been uninterrupted. The cells, I discovered, have such thin walls between them that you can hear a zipper being zipped; it’s impossible to ignore your neighbor getting up at 1:30 for Matins. That kind of intimacy can make for stressful moments. But even if I had slept in the Plaza’s most luxurious accommodations, that night’s slumber would have been fitful and troubled
.

I thought I was experiencing that same queasy feeling—those butterflies in my stomach—that I always had before a performance, intensified because I had had no rehearsal for what lay ahead that day. But those weren’t butterflies. I was in a real panic. All the fears of the previous day were still with me, but the feeling of God’s presence was not with me. I felt abandoned and utterly alone
.

In this state I stumbled through the first day, as if I were in the middle of a jigsaw puzzle with no idea how the pieces could possibly fit together
.

At the beginning, I didn’t fully comprehend what it would be like to have the Divine Office as part and parcel of my life in the monastery. When I walked in, I was walking to God—to find communion with Him. I had no inkling what the matter and substance of that experience would be—what it takes to become a cloistered nun. I hadn’t asked commonplace questions about the day-to-day routine because my drive—to find that spiritual union with God—was, I thought, of a higher order
.

The Divine Office is the name of the hours of communal prayer observed by monastic communities, which are rooted in the Jewish tradition of prayer at regular times of the day. The prime mission for contemplative Benedictines is to pray the Divine Office, keeping the words of the psalms resonating through the day and night, every day of the year
.

Because I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night for Matins—postulants are eased into Matins over a period of time—I was awakened at 5:45
A.M.
by a bell I would learn to call the Rising Bell. I had little time to bathe and dress because the next bell, announcing Lauds, would ring at 6:10. There was only one shower stall in the bathroom, but I noticed no one stood in line at the door. Some of the women showered in the evening before bedtime. Eventually I learned to keep one eye out for the moment the bathroom was unoccupied and then make a dash for it
.

My cell contained no mirror. The only available mirror was on the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I used to be so annoyed at having constantly to check my appearance in a mirror, but doing without one was a difficult adjustment. In all my years at Regina Laudis, I have never seen myself full length in a mirror. Fortunately, a mirror wasn’t crucial. Although my hair was long, it could be pulled back and held by a rubber band for easy maintenance, and the postulant headdress covered it like a kerchief. And there was, of course, no need to apply makeup
.

When I walked into the choir for Lauds and took my place, I realized I did not know the first thing about the Office. I did not participate in the Latin chant, but I listened to and tried to follow in my breviary what the nuns were singing. I was appalled by the discovery that I was now required to sing prayers eight times every day. It was a blow, one I didn’t get used to for a long time. Or rather, one that I didn’t submit to for a long time
.

Lauds is followed by Prime. As with Lauds, I understood not one word. After Prime most of the Community takes breakfast at 6:45. At 7:25, the bell rings for Terce. There is no need for a bell to announce Mass because it immediately follows Terce. Mass was familiar territory for me—and the readings and the homily were in English
.

After Mass, the Community begins its first work period at nine o’clock. Benedictine work is twofold
—Lectio Divina,
which means “sacred reading” or study, and manual labor
.

At first, with the other novices and postulants, I met with Mother Anselm for a variety of reading and study programs in a small novitiate common room adjacent to our cells. Afterward, we younger members reported for our manual work assignment—known as an obedience. Mine was in the vegetable garden or the orchard or, from time to time, the flower garden. The nun in charge was Mother Stephen Prokes, who was responsible for the maintenance of all the monastery land. Mother Stephen was tall and fit—and very much in charge
.

Fruits and vegetables are raised for the Community’s needs. The flower garden was Reverend Mother’s domain; she would arrange flowers daily in the chapel. When I was assigned garden duty, I had a variety of tasks. One day I would harvest string beans, the next pick apples or cherries, the next shovel manure—and weed, weed, weed
.

—Was the work assigned in a communal or democratic way?

   
It was “Do as Mother Stephen says.” And she was unchallenged
.

Was any particular area of gardening your favorite?

   
No, I hated it all. I have always hated getting dirt under my fingernails. I was such a ninny that I believed the sisters when they said that each bean had to be planted with a specific side up or it would not grow out of the soil, but down to China. It took me ages to plant the damn things
.

The bell for Sext rings at 11:50. I was getting a little tired of the bells. As with the other Offices, I listened to the nuns sing the prayers while I stared at, but didn’t connect with, the Latin in the book. Sext is followed by the midday meal. This time there was a reading. The Community had just begun
Gone with the Wind.

After the meal, there is an hour set aside for Sabbath at one o’clock. This is personal time and, for a postulant, time for more study. The texts—always something that will aid monastic growth—are chosen by the mistress of novices and, for me, included the psalms, the Rule, and
The Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict.

The sixth Office, None—it rhymes with
bone—
begins at two o’clock. More chant. More Latin. At 2:15, there is another half hour for personal development and study before the afternoon obedience begins. My assignment was in the laundry. I gathered the clean laundry and sorted stockings and underwear according to the numbers sewn on them. This was long before an individual’s clothing was kept together in bags for laundering. The clean items were placed in numbered cubbyholes on the wall—I still have the same cubby I was given my first day. Some garments, such as the linen caps and wimples and bandeaux, had to be ironed. Thanks to Granny I was a pretty fair ironer
.

At the conclusion of our work period, it was traditional to sing the Salve Regina, a well-loved Catholic hymn. Sister Fides, who was in charge of the laundry, knew exactly how long the Salve took to sing, and she would count the seconds before beginning the hymn so that she could let us go at precisely 4:45
.

—Really, it was 5-4-3-2-1-Blast off! Salve Regina! And out!

At 4:45 we take tea, also in silence, but there is no time for talk anyway because Vespers begins at 5:00 on the nose. After Vespers, there is a period for meditation from 5:30 to 6:00 and then supper. Again, there is no conversation but another reading. Everyone always does her own dishes. But there is a “dish list” posted every week with the names of three persons who are “invited” to serve on KP. From 6:30 to 7:15, there is scheduled recreation—either indoor or outdoor
.

—I’m getting visions of nuns dribbling basketballs. What was outdoor recreation?

   
It was dismal
.

Indoor recreation was generally left up to each of us—personal reading, letter writing or listening to the news of the day. Conversation in the novitiate was limited to the period of recreation. We could never, for example, go into another’s cell to visit. When conversation did take place, it was about the work we were engaged in. It was never personal and never gossip
.

In those days, postulants and novices did not mix with the professed nuns. We had to stay in our own area. In fact, a postulant was not permitted to speak to the mothers ever—unless she received a note indicating that one of the mothers wished to speak to her. In monastic custom, postulants were addressed as “Miss”. So, for the third time in my life, I was called Miss Dolores
.

Compline follows recreation at 7:30 and is the last of the seven Divine Offices. As with all the other Offices, I was completely adrift. But I did remember it as the Office I had liked when I was a visitor. From the end of Compline to Lauds the following morning, the Grand Silence is observed. No one is supposed to speak after Compline
.

About thirty minutes after Compline ends, another bell rings to announce early bedtime—ridiculously early for me. It isn’t lights out—I could read or write letters—but it wasn’t long before I wanted to get to sleep as soon as possible because the bell for Matins would sound in just a few hours
.

When I crawled into bed after my first full day inside the monastery, I was amazed that every waking moment had been rigidly accounted for. The monastic timetable put a movie production schedule to shame. Its steady and deliberate pace had, overnight, replaced the swift whirling pattern of motion that had filled my days for eight months—ever since the October morning when Don drove up and I put that letter back into my pocket
.

Again, in the dark of my cell, that gnawing sense of abandonment returned. Confusion, complete bewilderment gripped me. I did not understand what I was feeling. This was supposed to be the place where I was going to have my meeting with God. Something was going to happen—an immediate change, a promise fulfilled—the quest that had been torturing me all these months would stop, and I would find some peace
.