The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (64 page)

—I still carried, however, the sting of the archbishop’s hostility, which always conjures up memories of that little boy who made the necklace out of poor, struggling ladybugs
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The Community appealed the Sacred Congregation’s decision that we hold an election for a new abbess. When that appeal failed, a letter from Archbishop Ossa informed Lady Abbess that she would be vacated and that he had appointed a delegate from the Holy See to come to Regina Laudis as administrator
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Lady Abbess agreed to step down. “Now you know what real obedience is all about”, she told the Community, and then added, “We must always believe that with crisis comes new birth
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—I think, for Lady Abbess, this was the devastation she endured until her death: she thought that the foundation was over. I know this was in her heart
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   Are you speaking of your own feelings as well? You and I had phone conversations during this period, and I have never known you to be devastated except then. “If this happens,” you told me, “if Rome would put someone in permanent charge of the abbey, I will have to leave.”

At that moment, yes, I feared for the same thing, that the loss of Lady Abbess and Father Prokes could have been the beginning of the end for the foundation
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Though I did not know it, I was the person who carried the news of his reassignment to Father Prokes. I drove to Father’s home, Saint Lucy’s, carrying a letter from his Jesuit provincial in Milwaukee. He read the letter but did not share its contents; instead he took from a high shelf a very old bottle of brandy, containing barely a shot of the ugliest liquid I had ever seen. It had long since passed vinegar. He poured out the dregs into two glasses and raised a toast “to the future”. I could hardly swallow the sip I took and turned away to rinse out the glass. When I turned back, Father Prokes was no longer in the room
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Back at the monastery, a letter from Archbishop Ossa was shared with me. Not only was Father’s reassignment effective immediately, but he was to have no further contact of any kind with the Community. I realized then that he had submitted to this order as he was reading the letter and must be, at that very moment, packing up. He had that kind of obedience. Our toast had been his farewell. There would be no goodbyes
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I felt ravaged in my heart. Father was my teacher. He had given me the basis for the Education Deanery but was very pure and chaste and did not insert himself into the operation once it was established. His work was to make something happen and once that was done, allow another to do it. I thanked God then that I had kept all my notes from every one of his homilies—his education, his discourse, his truth. I thought back to his greatest lesson: “When the master goes, the disciple is born
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Reverend Matthew Stark, abbot of Portsmouth Abbey in Rhode Island, was now administrator of Regina Laudis. Certainly there began an intense period of sorrow for the older members of the Community, and there seemed no way to explain that to any of the younger members who had entered after this rip in the heart of the Community had taken its toll
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As portress, one of my functions was to carry the keys to the house and admit appropriate visitors inside the enclosure. I arose well before the bell for Matins so that I could unlock the door to the house if Father Matthew arrived to attend the Office. But when I entered the darkened chapel, I was startled to find the priest inside
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I apologized that I had not been there to welcome him to Matins and asked how he gained entrance. “Oh,” he said, “I have a key
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A key to our house! I felt a rush of anger and the shock of fear
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I have a temper, an ouburst of emotion that flashes and is soon spent. The fear, however, persisted and provoked questions. Were we to be under house arrest? How will this manifest the true spirit of all we write about, sing about, all we entrust our lives to? Might there be no consciousness, no sensitivity of who we are? Is this to be the continuity of Regina Laudis? If so, this isn’t where I belong, I thought. I don’t care what age I am; I will just go do something else, because God is everywhere
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Mother Abbess recalled, “Oh, at that time, we were all leaving. We weren’t leaving, of course, but projecting a stand. We had formed relationships, the deepest relationships one can have, and depended on them. You don’t just walk away from that.”

Abbot Matthew did keep a low profile and, for all intents, took his role to be our retreat master. He did perform chaplain duties but also conducted conferences regarding Benedictine life rooted in reverence for God and the human person, respect for learning and order and responsibility for the shared experience of community life in an atmosphere informed by our fifteen-hundred-year-old heritage
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—
He also had, I was pleased to discover, a deep affection for Pope John XXIII—he quoted him often—and this became a personal bridge between the two of us
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As I began to see that we were on the same page, the situation began to feel less demeaning. It was encouraging to learn that the college preparatory school run by the monks at Portsmouth shared our focus on scholarly and artistic work and hospitality. The Portsmouth school had produced three US senators—including Robert and Edward Kennedy—plus a composer, a newspaper columnist, a novelist and screenwriter, a college president, a political satirist, an FBI director and, yes, an actor, Charlie Day
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Abbot Matthew was to officiate at the Consecration of five nuns, but Archbishop Ossa insisted all Consecrations be suspended for the time being—by which he meant until we did a study of the ceremony and understood its place in monastic life
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The briefest way to describe this is that the archbishop felt that we put too much emphasis on Consecration as opposed to final profession, which is the ultimate ceremony for most religious communities of women. But there is a strong, ancient monastic tradition for Consecration that is not hard to prove—if one is willing to listen
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Consecration is a very powerful and specifically feminine rite celebrating the nun as the spouse of Christ. I think the archbishop was afraid of that and wanted to reduce its potency. I think he also was testing our submission. There existed a quiet standoff, during which the number of nuns awaiting Consecration grew to nine and depression within the Community turned to despair
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I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge here the support of Father Robert Tucker. The best part of him is that as our confessor he was the greatest consolation to the Community. We would not have gotten through one of the worst times of suffering except for Father Tucker’s noble heart—and his sense of humor
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When Abbot Matthew ended his tenure, Abbot Mark Serna—also from Portsmouth and an equally caring man—completed the assignment. What I remember most about both of them is that neither gentleman ever came across as “the boss”, as I had feared they would. They were put in charge but never insisted on relating to us because they were in charge. The brotherly and fatherly concern they showed us was genuine. They gave to me personally a fresh witness to the authority of the Church and were instrumental in helping me to accept that authority in friendship. This was a most healing experience for me
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As I look back, that period of our lives was one of incredible formation for us that we could not have anticipated. The Community remained beautiful, strong and clear, and the new and positive relationship with Rome that Lady Abbess had promised came to be
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—Father Matthew never forgets to send me a note on my feast day, which may seem inconsequential but it is a sign that he remembers us
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On February 27, 1997, the completed chapel at Our Lady of the Rock was dedicated, with Lady Abbess, Mother Irene and Mother Maria joining in celebration the seven nuns now making up the Community on Shaw Island. On the chapel altar stood the crucifix given to the Community by Henry Ellis
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Mother Therese remembered the day with tears in her eyes: “We rejoiced in the completion of this phase of development. We marveled at the beauty of our new place of worship alongside many local craftsmen who had worked in the construction of the chapel. They were part of the 150 residents who attended the dedication—almost the entire population of Shaw Island!”

In the summer of 1998, the nine nuns in Final Vows did participate in the ceremony for the Consecration of a Virgin, officiated by Abbot Matthew. I think once we agreed to elect a new abbess and showed we were not going to fight Rome, the powers relented about this ceremony. Ironically, by suppressing it they had made it all the more meaningful and important to us!

Thirty-Nine

Except for getting the flu each winter and suffering a brief bout of neuromas, which were successfully treated by wearing orthotics, I had a pretty good track record as far as medical problems went
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But in early 1997, I underwent a root canal. I was in the dentist’s chair for several hours, and on the way home I was reeling. Mother Irene, our infirmarian, prescribed bed rest right away. I slept from Friday afternoon to the following Sunday morning
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When I awoke, I expected the pain in my jaw but, when I put my feet on the floor, I felt as if I were standing on a bed of needles. The stings shot up my legs like lightning bolts
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We thought it might be a spur and made an appointment with Dr. Richard Biondi, the Community’s internist in Woodbury. Dr. Biondi referred me to a neurologist, Dr. Kenneth Kaplove, who thought that the root canal might have upset the neuromas; he prescribed medication as well as water physiotherapy. I began swimming every day in the hydrotherapy pool at a center for orthopedic rehabilitation in Waterbury and found that this was the only time I was not in severe pain
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It was a stroke of luck that this facility was in the process of moving to Middlebury and had to replace the pool to fit the new quarters. Greg Wright, the owner, offered to give us the old pool, which we installed in a greenhouse-root cellar on our property so that the entire community could take advantage of it
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The medication, however, brought no relief. I was then treated with cortisone shots in both feet, but I continued to experience pain and difficulty standing and walking
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Thus began a two-year fruitless—and often counteractive—odyssey to find out what was plaguing me. Throughout the rest of 1997, all of 1998 and most of 1999, I saw a succession of doctors in the Waterbury and Southbury areas whose diagnoses widely varied. One doctor treated for arthritis. A rheumatologist diagnosed osteoporosis. An immunologist and an anti-inflammatory specialist both detected hypothyroidism
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An orthopedic surgeon, who strongly felt that the problem was the result of neuromas and metatarsalitis, had an ankle-foot brace made to ease the pain of walking, but after several months of wearing the bulky thing, I was no better. Another doctor said there was “a problem with anti-cardio lipin antibodies”. I can’t remember now what that meant, but he said it was very rare. Another simply told me I was losing the padding on the bottoms of my feet
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