The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (61 page)

For several weeks before she died, she was bedridden in her cell, but whenever I tried to visit her, she refused to talk to me, even when Father Tucker told her to do so. She just would not budge
.

—She went out glaring at you?

   
Yes. I didn’t go into her cell even when Mass was said there. I could not cross the line—or, I should say, I would not cross the line. We broke the reed, she and I. Saint Benedict urges bending—not breaking—the reed. We broke it, and I regret that
.

Thoughts of mortality brought to mind the first time I had encountered death—the passing of Grandpa’s brother George when I was six. I loved Uncle George and was told he was away on a trip. As I was too little to go to the cemetery, I was kept at home during the service. I remember hearing the sound of a train whistle in the distance and thinking, “Oh, that must be Uncle George
.”

Death has been described as an end, a disaster; also as a beginning, a door opening. But if death is a door opening, what lies beyond the door? Might it be just nothing
?

The purpose of Christian faith is to believe in the Resurrection; the keystone is that Christ rose from the dead. I think whether or not a person can get through the mystery of death is the ultimate test of faith. I can only surmise that, as Dolores Marie, I was named into holding the dead Christ as Mary did—and the Gospels do imply that our Lady did not accept death as the last word for her Son
.

—Is there a built-in comfort factor in believing that life continues beyond?

   
I am not sure it really works that way. Religious life doesn’t give you a comfort zone as much as it puts you up against the reality in a far more severe context. “Keep death daily before your eyes” is one of the “tools for good works”—spiritual disciplines—that Saint Benedict asks us to use every day. The point of Christianity—certainly of monasticism—is to answer the question “How do I participate in—and, indeed, how am I myself—the work of God?” These tools permit us to be open to that participation—to experience in our lives the gifts and the grace of God
.

Do you have a personal view of what you are heading for?

   
I believe the body at death ceases to be a boundary, a confinement—but its capacity for communion remains. That capacity for communion is truly the essence of resurrection, and that leads me to consider that resurrected life must take the shape of everything that one has done in one’s life to be a communicative person. In other words, everything we have done in life is the architecture of the eternal body. I am building that body now
.

It seems new life always comes into the community to balance the passings. This period saw the entrances of eight young women and the final profession of Mother Monica Nadzam, who had entered in 1983 at the age of sixty-two, joining in Community her niece Mother Scholastica Lenkner, who is in charge of all our preserving
.

—
When Mother Monica entered, her two hopes were to become our cookie baker and to use a power saw! Well, she is and she has! I remember the first time she cut down a tree. Instead of falling away from her, it crashed down exactly where she was standing. The two main branches of the tree were formed into a perfect
V
and, like a scene in a Buster Keaton movie, came to rest on either side of Sister Monica, who was unscathed and standing strong
.

There was now in place a prepostulancy program for women asking to be considered as candidates. In this phase, the woman begins to regulate her life within the order as befits a postulant. She enters into a relationship with the dean of education, and she begins to chart. She learns to pray certain Hours by herself and the schedule of the early-to-bed life. She also learns what is not permitted—a smoker, for example, must give up smoking—and finds out whether she is capable of living and training under real conditions. It is still structured, but it’s not as restrictive as it used to be
.

The first of the new postulants was Susan Postel. With a master’s degree in psychology, she had worked in community mental health with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Seattle, Washington. “I had been adopted as an infant”, she said, “but had never tried to find my birth mother. I had a fabulous upbringing by wonderful people, so it was not a priority interest for me. But when it became obvious that I had a vocation, Lady Abbess said, ‘Look, you haven’t really started to figure out what
your
life is about, much less what
this
life is about. You really have to find your birth mother if you can.

“Mother Dolores was the one to choreograph the search for my heritage, and over time we did locate my mother and stepfather, who became part of my life.”

—Susan entered Regina Laudis in 1990 and is now Mother Lioba Postel, the founder of our candle studio. I am continually aware of the grace in Mother Lioba that made her able to receive the goodness in her two families and be a daughter to each
.

The second entrant was a local Bethlehem girl, Karen Makarewicz, who came with an art background from the University of Utah. Her area of expertise was weaving, which, after college, she fashioned as artwork that was shown in galleries throughout Connecticut.

“But something was missing”, recalled Karen, who is now Mother Jadwiga Makarewicz. “I needed to have my art be useful to others, and this frustration led me to the abbey, where I made a commitment.”

Spinning and weaving, an integral part of Benedictine monastic life that was brought to Regina Laudis by the first nuns, has been enhanced because of Mother Jadwiga. As steward of the sheep flock, she has become guardian of the entire process of our wool production, from lambing to the weaving of the garments and tapestries that we sell. She bases her designs on our land—the hills and the gardens—and, strikingly, on the feathers of the turkeys who live by the sheep barn. She is the one who introduced Shetland sheep to the flock because they are a better breed for wool. Just a few years ago, she added a caretaker for the sheep—a llama named Giselle, who takes her job very seriously
.

—
There is a large and beautiful tapestry hanging in our church that never fails to remind me of my Consecration. It is a faithful reproduction of the Madonna by Mother Placid that was on my Consecration card. The tapestry was woven by Mother Jadwiga over many years—a daunting endeavor for which I will be forever grateful
.

Janel Schullo, a Minnesota girl, became curious about theology in college. “Theology credits were required, otherwise I never would have taken a course,” she recalled, “but once I did, I was fascinated and decided to make it my major. As I got more into the study I realized that, as absorbing as it was, there was an abstract quality that disturbed me, and I was drawn to exploring the justice movements in Central America. I spent a semester in Guatemala working at an orphanage. It was life changing for me. I came to see that my own country was poorer spiritually than Guatemala.

“I returned home with a growing sense of mission, dropped the classes for my junior year at college and entered the internship program at Regina Laudis. It was in the spring, and I was conscious that most of my peers from college were on spring break in Cancun and here I was, a college party girl, in a monastery. It was a signal that my life was going in the other direction.

“I felt I fit right in. I was with persons who were radically different individuals, but who were also just like me. I entered in 1993 and consider myself blessed to have found this place.”

—
She is now Mother Cecilia Schullo, and her most precious gift to the Community is her skill in the practice of massage and yoga. On scholarship, she studied self-awakening yoga at Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. This school of yoga is based on the belief that we learn through our body and that our body can tell us what it needs if we acquire the habit of listening to it, which complements the principles and practice of monastic life at Regina Laudis. Mother Cecilia now holds a degree from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts—a master of education in interdisciplinary studies with a specialization in monastic yoga education
.

Frances Levi Cooke’s childhood playground was within the celebrated mansions of Newport, Rhode Island. “My family genealogy celebrates both observant Jews and Catholics,” she said, “so I was educated in the Roman Catholic Church while knowing myself as Jewish.”

As an adult, Frances’ surroundings were the halls of government, where she represented the interests of Fortune 500 clients to state and federal, national and international bodies. In other words, she was a lobbyist. She began visiting Regina Laudis in 1984, having been drawn there by the abbey’s reputation for chant. She became an oblate in 1989 and served the abbey by working with the Act Association.

She would arrive in her shiny black Saab, dressed in an Armani suit, smoking up a storm, and, within minutes, be in work clothes, moving stage furniture at the theater or cleaning the toilets in Sheepfold. She related to Sheepfold right off and recently has organized its renovation. She is our professional planner, making the abbey green while working out cooperative (and financially beneficial) ventures with suppliers such as Connecticut Light and Power, AT&T, FedEx and Kmart
.

—
At one time I wondered if we could really have in our midst a Jewish person who wanted to hold the flame of Israel and light it in our chambers. As Mother Daniel Levi Cooke, she does. She is a true zaddik
.

Elizabeth Schumann first visited Regina Laudis while a student at the University of Connecticut, studying for a degree in fine arts, her specialty being landscape photography.

She entered our land program and just fell in love with the land. During a storm, a cherry tree near the church was knocked down—it really looked like nothing more than a piece of junk and was marked to be cleared out. But Elizabeth responded to the injured tree and asked to tend to it. When it came time for the tree to be cut down, Father Prokes was able to give it a reprieve. She entered Regina Laudis in 1993, and by the time she became Sister Ozanne she was effecting major improvements in our orchards
.

—
In order to take care of the trees, she created a new kind of work habit. Mother Maria downsized a scapular, and with longer boots, a colorful hardhat and layers of rope draped around her waist, she looks like a character out of
Robin Hood.

Marcia Hutchinson was a law student when she first visited Regina Laudis. “I had left the Church and was not a practicing Catholic at that time”, she recalled. “I remember watching the television production of
This House of Brede
. This story of a London businesswoman who gave up her career to enter a cloistered Benedictine monastery absolutely pierced my heart. I mentioned this to a friend who, coincidentally, was going to visit an abbey the following weekend and asked if I would like to go with her.

“The abbey was Regina Laudis. Well, I must have sobbed the whole weekend in parlors. It was like my whole life came up in front of me; it was that dramatic. I got my law degree and began a career as a land-use attorney, visiting Regina Laudis regularly. I was searching for a way to have a relationship to the abbey as a layperson so, through the eighties, I became part of a group called the Benedictine Elementaries, which served to cement a relationship with the Community. But I still yearned to hook into the intensity of their lives. It was a call that, after twenty years, I finally answered.”

—Marsha entered in 1996, taking on the role of Community videographer almost from the first moment. She also took on the responsibility of tutoring in English young Bernard de la Brunetière, one of several French boys in our land program. She is now Mother Emmanuelle Hutchinson, our guest mistress
.

Chant drew Monica Evans, a Wall Street lawyer and a law professor at Santa Clara University, to Regina Laudis. “When I was a student at Sarah Lawrence College,” she said, “I heard a record of chant by the monks of Solesmes, and I went looking for that music. When I first visited Regina Laudis in 1978, I found it. I felt a place that can preserve the chant, even through the bitter cynicism of that era, well, that’s a place to be trusted.” Monica entered in 1996. She is now Mother Elizabeth Evans, the first African-American in the Community.

—
When Mother Elizabeth saw the television documentary
Which Way Home,
about Mexican children attempting to enter the United States illegally, she was shattered by the story of two young boys, Eloy and Rosario, who had survived the dangerous trip across the border riding atop railway cars, only to wind up in the Arizona desert, dead and unclaimed. The image of those boys drove her to search out a place on the abbey land where she could reclaim their lives. She found a piece of earth that had never been tilled or seeded and turned this barren patch into a garden in their names
.