The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (46 page)

Mother Abbess David remembered, “The knitting-needles incident when she was still a postulant had served to alert me to a purity of spirit in her. I had searched her out that evening to offer what comfort I could give her for the loss of her mother.

“I don’t remember all we spoke of that evening, but Sister mentioned that she didn’t like reading, that she would lose concentration. She enjoyed reading scripts, but that’s because she’s visually oriented. Whenever she described something, she would come to creation through a visual. She would say, ‘Gosh, that sunset is just like the one in—and then she would name some movie. Of course, I wouldn’t have seen the movie, but it amazed me that she always came from the visual. I could see that for her just to sit and read in her cell could be a problem.”

—Before she entered religious life, Mother David had been a social worker, and once a social worker, always a social worker. She was sensitive to my reading problem and asked if she could help. After that evening, she and I started reading together during the short period after Vespers. We started with the unicorn books, which were in our library. We would read them together, out loud
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Over time, I came to the point where I was no longer in deep pain over Mom. I could look back, and the ache wasn’t following me. I wondered if that had anything to do with my own capacity to believe in the peaceful release of our souls after death. I didn’t know where that place could be, but I knew she was free—and I was no longer locked in my grief
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She was a childlike person—such a searching, groping person. She suffered deeply in her hopes. I’ve never lost the feeling that Daddy’s death contributed to Mom’s. She died barely eighteen months after he died. She loved him and she hated him, but I believe that my mother didn’t want to be on this earth without him
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I don’t have any real sense of either of my parents holding my life. It was more that I was holding theirs. As I grew older, that unspecified burden became an early sense of mission. I feel no failure in that mission because I feel no responsibility for their choices in life. But I believe what I am doing with my life somehow fulfills what was missing in them
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The undercurrent of discontent within the Community only intensified during the late sixties, and there was no longer any effort to hide the growing resentment. With my actor’s sense, I could tell that there was mutiny in the air
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It seemed to me that those unhappy women were interpreting Vatican II in their own way, protesting that our religious habits, Gregorian chant, Latin Mass—and finally the enclosure itself—should go. Reverend Mother stood firm in her belief that, however contradictory it appeared, openness to the future and unity with the past were not only necessary for the continuity of Regina Laudis, but possible
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—
Continuity—that’s important to Benedictines
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I was picking up darker vibrations, too—a growing mind-set that Reverend Mother’s tenure as superior should be ended and a new centering official installed. They also wanted to end Father Prokes position at the monastery. Some of the women even wrote letters to the Vatican asking that Regina Laudis be designated as a new priory. That’s what they really wanted to form, something that was very neat and could simply be tied up and put into the hands of the local bishop. Then we would be just another nice, sweet, predictable nunnery that belonged to him
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Most of the women in the Community accepted Reverend Mother as both foundress and superior, and they wanted that to be endorsed by the Holy See. To end the standoff, Reverend Mother decided she had no choice but to take her case to Rome. In 1968, with Mother Irene at her side, she traveled to Rome for a meeting with Pope Paul VI—the former Cardinal Giovanni Montini, the man who had supported her call to found the monastery. He stood firmly by Reverend Mother and confirmed her place as superior. He also urged her to have a constitution composed, tailor-made for Regina Laudis
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When she returned to the monastery, Reverend Mother left no possibility open for further opposition. “I have been validated by the pope as the foundress and superior of this monastery”, she told us. “I am in charge, and if I want the door latches painted green, they will be painted green
.”

—
This is true. They were green
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Drafting the monastery’s constitution was now the main order of business. Reverend Mother Benedict assembled a nucleus of professed nuns who would work with her and Father Prokes on its composition. In a surprising move, she invited Sister Judith, although only in First Vows, to join with them. She knew that this particular youngster would add the voice of the future in a no-holds-barred way.

This was an advanced concept for the monastery because usually the young people were afraid to say anything. It was a great gift to be included, as it offered me the opportunity to immerse myself inside a corporate vision of our life. I approached the challenge eagerly because I fervently supported Reverend Mother’s belief that a new constitution did not mean throwing out fifteen hundred years of Benedictine Rule but taking on those perennial values with a new dedication
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Working on our constitution was one of the most incredible learning phases of my life. Among the women with whom I worked was Mother Jerome von Nagel Mussayassul, one of the most learned and gifted persons I’ve ever known. She was an accomplished writer and poet, fluent in eight languages. At various times in her life, she called Germany, Egypt, Italy and the United States home. She had been married to a Muslim émigré, a highly regarded painter. Together they gave shelter to Russian refugees and concentration camp survivors during and after World War II
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When her husband died, she continued writing, under the name Muska Nagel, yet felt a pull toward monastic life that led her to Regina Laudis. At age fifty she entered the monastery in the same year that I, at nineteen, was entering the movie world
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Mother Jerome spoke to me of her friendship with Sister Judith. “I served as sacristan at her Clothing. In those days, there was no way really to know someone, but the one thing that struck me was her utter simplicity. You never got the impression of a star coming to the monastery—never, under no circumstances. And that is part of her innermost being. That she made that impression always gave me a good feeling about Hollywood.

“We began to know each other when we worked on the constitution together. She was very committed—articulate, outspoken and quite funny. But the lasting impression that I carry is that she is a good listener. She looks at you as if she is investigating what you’re really thinking.”

—
I shared a bond with Mother Jerome—one that we kept to ourselves. I once mentioned to her that I despised putting my hands in dirt. “My dear,” she said smiling, “the earth was made for humans to walk upon, not to grovel in, like worms
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It would take a year to complete the first draft of our constitution, which Reverend Mother herself presented to the Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome. We would wait two years for a response. The draft was rejected but with suggestions to facilitate a favorable consideration in the future. I felt they had cut out the charity and compassion and mercy. A number of versions would be submitted before our constitution was finally accepted in 1974
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—I see new documents coming out of Rome today, and they contain the very things we had included in that first draft. The substance of what we wrote all those years ago is used now to “bring the Church into the new millennium”
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Twenty-Eight

Set me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy relentless as sheol. The flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of Yahweh himself, love no flood can quench, no torrents drown
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—Song of Songs 8:6-7

Formation at Regina Laudis follows the classical stages of postulancy, novitiate, first profession, then final profession and the reception of the
Consecratio Virginis,
the ancient Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity, which seals the love between the contemplative and God as described in the Song of Songs
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It seems that the journey to Consecration should be one of climbing up a mountain when, in fact, it is like riding ripples on a pond. If I had to illustrate that passage, I think I would need a motion-picture camera to capture the constant movement: up, in and out, and for that matter, sideways too, illuminating the periods of despondency as well as joy
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As I moved toward the time of Final Vows and Consecration, I grew more and more aware of the immensity of the responsibility that I would be assuming and was again troubled that I wouldn’t be up to it. The decision as to whether a novice will continue to Final Vows is made by the Order as well as by the individual, and in the spring of 1970 the Order and I were in agreement that I was suited to the spiritual life
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Final Vows and Consecration had been traditionally combined in a single ceremony, but Reverend Mother informed me that I was to proceed in two steps. It was the first time the ceremonies of Consecration and Final Vows were separated at Regina Laudis
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Separating Final Vows and Consecration allows for two accents to emerge. Profession is thought of as masculine because it requires the woman to put herself forward, daring to say: I will promise this, I will give myself, I will identify with the sacrifice and mission of Christ on the Cross. Consecration calls on the feminine side of the woman as she receives the blessing of the Church on the promises she has made. This ceremony requires the bishop or abbot because it is an affirmation from the Church. The nun’s marriage to Christ is sealed by the bishop’s blessing
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I was to make my Final Vows on the feast of Saint Benedict, July 11, and to be consecrated on September 15, on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Separating the ceremonies further enhanced the complementary aspects of the liturgies of these two feast days. They really said Joseph and Mary to me in a full Benedictine way
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I had decided to illuminate my own memento cards for the ceremonies. For First Vows, I used an acrylic of a unicorn I had painted; for the Consecration I chose a free-form image of our Lady painted years before by Mother Placid (with a tooth brush!), which I had found by chance under boards in the studio. People said it put them in mind of Picasso, which pleased me
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—
Mother Placid didn’t mind too much either
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Final Vows are binding. The three vows are stability (you promise to stay in the cloister, and the Community promises to keep you); conversion (you promise to change your life, which includes accepting poverty and chastity); and obedience (you pledge fidelity to the authority of the abbess). Your title changes from Sister to Mother, and from then on you wear the black veil and cowl
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In addition to making these promises, at Final Vows I was given a new name, the first and only time that has occurred at Regina Laudis. Reverend Mother confided that she had been considering giving me back my own name because she felt it was more appropriate than Judith. I was overjoyed. Even though I had accepted it, I had never ever been at peace with Judith. The only sadness brought by this change was that Mom would not hear me called Dolores again and this would have made her so happy
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A move to another cell was called for now that I was a member of the Community, this one on the third floor of the monastery building, a cell I still occupy. The first thing I learned was that the third floor had been condemned by the local fire department as unsafe. Every year there was an inspection, and the same improvements were stipulated
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—
It appears that we simply ignored the stipulations. I’m relieved that we are now finally in the throes of making the needed improvements as part of our restoration of the lower monastery, an ongoing project we call New Horizons
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