The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows (71 page)

When our chaplain of seven years, Father Stephen Concordia, left in 2008 to establish his stability as choirmaster at Saint Vincent College, a Benedictine liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, we entered a period of three years without a permanent chaplain. There were friends such as Father Tucker and Father Douglas Mosey and Father Stan Kennedy who took on responsibility for saying Mass for us as often as they could. Then a new friend, Father Dominic Anaeto from Nigeria, was assigned to us for a year. Mostly, our sacristan Mother Maria got on the telephone each night to beg, borrow or steal a priest willing to pinch-hit on a day-to-day basis. It was all in God’s Providence
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In 2009 the most amazing turn of events occurred. Father Vito DeCarolis came to offer Mass one day and saw how badly we needed a priest and how badly Brother Iain wanted to be that priest but had no way to fulfill the call. Father Vito is a friend of Archbishop Mansell—they went to school in Rome together. He spoke to the archbishop, and, before the week was out, the archbishop called Brother Iain to ask him if he wanted to be a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Of course, the answer was a whole-hearted yes—but only if it was possible to serve the diocese by serving Regina Laudis as well
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Thus something entirely new was born through Archbishop Mansell’s farsightedness and Brother Iain’s willingness to take the risk of giving himself for the life of the Community without knowing exactly where it would lead him. On May 14, 2011, Brother Iain Highet was ordained to the priesthood. On the following morning, Father Iain offered his first Mass at the Church of Jesu Fili Mariae—as our chaplain—giving us once again the comfort of continuity
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Father Iain is a hybrid. As well as being chaplain at Regina Laudis, he has accepted the exhausting burden of two additional parishes within the diocese. Further, he has no guarantee that, when Archbishop Mansell retires, the next archbishop will honor his unique call to serve both the archdiocese and the abbey
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—I pray that it may always be so. It takes courage to live without a safety net
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“Regina Laudis could have remained a French monastery, but it became an American monastery due in no small part to Mother Dolores. She was instrumental in planting the seed of an American spirituality.” So said Brother Iain to me a few years ago. I had no idea at the time what he was talking about.

“You have to look back at the old European monasteries,” Father Iain explained, “when royalty and nobility came in and brought culture into the cloister. They also ran the monastery. America is not an aristocracy, and Mother Dolores, even as a nun quite young in monastic years, found pathways to change that cultural pattern and take tradition to another level. She had to submit to a European formation that was fifteen hundred years old, so I think it’s safe to say that her feet are planted in European past—and Hollywood future.

“There is always a need for spiritual figures who can make a bridge between tradition and innovation. It’s difficult for this country to accept a spiritual person who is not known for achievement. She knows what she’s representing to people, and it’s not the twenty-year-old. I don’t know of any women in the American church who have made the crossover from public life to spiritual life as dramatically as Mother Dolores. Young people especially respond to her not only because of her movies but because of what she now represents as an American consecrated virgin.

“She helped to create a new spirituality at Regina Laudis. She is the one who made it possible for a whole other generation to relate to monastic spirituality. I wouldn’t be here either. But without the complement of Mother Dolores and Mother Abbess, this new form of spirituality would not have taken root. They have formed Americans into nuns in a way that Lady Abbess could not have done.”

“She was the right choice for dean of education”, said Mother Abbess. “Mother recognizes people’s instinctual feelings—when they are free and when they are locked. I think that when emotions are locked Mother Dolores can’t stand it. That’s why she grabbed those knitting needles. She knew that nun was livid but her emotions were locked and she couldn’t get them out.

“Mother pushed for us to risk revealing how we honestly felt, and this was frightening. We did it so very awkwardly at first.”

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I was only taking steps to open a gate to human communication again, something that monastic life had somewhere forgotten or cut as a part of purification. At least that was my experience of the nuns who came from Jouarre. Their humanity was there but strangely separate from their religious life. It was Lady Abbess who made room for that humanity by introducing the dimension of education that allows a person who is seeking monastic life to quarrel with the past even while honoring its values. If I have helped bring only one thing to fruition, it is this capacity for, let us say, freedom of speech
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My part now as the dean of education is to look toward the Community’s future, and this takes me even more deeply into Benedictine life
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The younger women (in monastic years) began to feel hampered in the deanery meetings. They had reasonable concerns but not the interior freedom to express them. They did not share the history of the established members; they had had diverse experiences. They felt vulnerable if they happened to be seated next to their formation mother at a meeting, and this restricted their candid responses. There was no out-and-out animosity between the age groups. It was simply a matter of human nature that the older women were more set in their ways and the younger ones felt they would not be understood. Thus the younger women asked if they could form their own deanery, and I told them to go ahead. I meet with each deanery once a week, and my juices are flowing again
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“This is what Mother Dolores loves,” explained Mother Abbess, “to take on new challenges. It’s what she responds to. She has a real reverence and a real tenacity. She doesn’t let go of something once she takes it on.”

—I once asked Mother Abbess if the two of you ever lock horns, and she grinned. “Oh, much of the time”, she said. “I want A-B-C-D. She hates A-B-C-D. Mother said something to me recently on which I have meditated: ‘I’m not wrong! I’m different!’ ”

I am not easily persuaded by “religious” answers, in spite of the fact that I am a Roman Catholic convert and a member of a monastic community. I’ve found my answers step by step. The act of consecrating my life—body and soul—as a medium for God was a natural extension of my dedication to the media of theater and film as a professional actress. There was no time that I can remember when I didn’t want to be an actress, and when I finally did start working in front of the camera, I had the absolute sense of being in a holy place
. Holy
means belonging to God
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It has been said that, through His Incarnation as Christ, God moved into the world as an actor. I believe that. He made things happen through dramatic action, by engaging with people and by forming relationships that became the foundation of the community of the Church
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I would suggest that the theater is the art form that most fully offers us an opportunity to reflect on the Incarnation because it is the presentation of one body to another. I’ve long believed actors are deeply contemplative by nature. Theirs is a true calling. The fervor that actors bring to the camera lens or to an audience to reveal the passion of a human being is the same intensity that a religious brings to God
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In an actor’s life there is room for love for many people, those who surround him in his profession and those he portrays. The consecrated life also means loving many people in an intense and enduring way
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To a remarkable degree, our theater has been shaped by traditional Benedictine vows of stability, conversion of life and obedience. As Benedictines we take the vow of conversion of life so that we have the willingness to change and adapt to what God asks of us and the ability to see the operation of grace in the challenges we face. Conversion of life makes stability possible
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Our theater could never have come into being without having at its heart a commitment to stability—people committed to living side by side in one place, on one piece of land. Stability is what allows the theater to grow and change—from being a few wet actors in a tent to a repertory with a high level of professionalism
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The vow of obedience is the one that people seem to have the hardest time with, and yet obedience is basically a simple principle, however hard it may be to submit to at times. Anyone who has been in a play can tell you that to pull it off means that you have to submit to a lot of demands. When everyone working on a play submits to what is needed, something comes to life that is greater than the sum of its parts. What is born is a community of the play, for many of our people the first deep experience of communal life
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“Although enclosed,” Mother Abbess said, “Mother Dolores was called to be a public person. In reality, she never stopped being a public person. She has always drawn people to Regina Laudis and opened them to the Community.

“Mother will always have the heart of an actress. That’s a place where she is totally alive in spirit.”

“Although she is still very much a presence,” said Alistair Highet, one of the founding members of the Act Association, “Mother is not able to be around the theater so much now. Mother Angèle is more the foot soldier.

“Mother Dolores will come and watch some of the rehearsals, but her role is more symbolic now.” He paused for a moment and smiled. “But she does symbolic very well.”

The Benedictine rule that we “receive all visitors as Christ” is for us an obligation to provide hospitality to all who come to us. One of the ways in which we express our hospitality is through the plays that we produce at the abbey. People from all over can come to our land for an afternoon or an evening, sit inside our theater—which is very beautiful on a summer night, with hanging baskets and lanterns lighting the way—and partake for a while of our world and share it with us
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Our theater is a reflection of our spirituality; each play is nurtured within the context of the monastery and informed by the principles that govern our life. There is something of our monastic spirit that goes out through the bodies of the actors and touches our audiences. The place and the time that we spend there—I do think that is holy
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PAX

Acknowledgments

Mother Dolores joins me in acknowledging the generous contributions of so many people. We are grateful to all of you, especially to Mother Abbess David Serna and the hardworking, accomplished women who are the Community of the Abbey of Regina Laudis.

Our deep thanks to Valerie Allen, Winnie Allen, Deborah Curren Aquino, Phyllis Avery, Tom Ayre, Mother Ruth Barry, Sister Dorothy Bartels, Gail Lammerson Belt, Bill Bergen, Harry Bernsen, Deena Hicks Binon, Shirley Hicks Borregaarde, Antoinette Bosco, Jan Shepard Boyle, Ellisa Lanza Bregman, Kelly Briney, Anita Busch, Brother Anthony Castigliego, Karen Cadle, Tom and Sally Camm, Rebecca Cammissa, AJ Carothers, Archbishop William Aquin Carew, “Maria Salome” June Christian, John Clifford, Ned Comstock, Father Stephen Concordia, Mother Terese Critchley, Chris Davis, Bradford Dillman, Mila Malden Doerner, Cort Douglas, James Douglas, Amanda (Mrs. Phillip) Dunne, Bernie Ebbins, Don Eitner, Beverly and Bud Fallon, Anthony Franciosa, Andrew Grosman, Ree Howell, Arlene Howsley Gardner, Phil Gersh, Joan and Jim Gilbert, Globe Photos, Dan Goggin, Bernie Gordon, Martin Gordon, Bert Hicks Jr., John Hicks, Liliana Hicks, Joe Halloran of Caesar’s Camera, Mariette Hartley, Earl Holliman, Marsha Hunt, Valerie Imbleau, Asako Ishii, Byron Janis.

Hal Kanter, Vance and Gladys Kincaid, John Spaulding King, Nobuko Kobayashi, Jack Larson, Dr. Norman Latov, Bill Lavelle, Jennifer Lea, Judy Lewis, Frank Liberman, AC Lyles, Laurie and Kate MacMurray, Al Marsello, Brother Kevin McElroy, Sheila Hart McGuire, Melora Mennesson, Philippe Mennesson, Barbara Middleton, Matt Mitler, Patricia Neal, Lois Nettleton, Sheila Nevins, Hugh O’Brian, Dale Olson, Hiroko Onoyama, Helen Patton, Ron Pelletier, Gigi Perreau de Ruelle, Donald Peterson, Judith Pinco, Dariel Pittman, Cordula Polenek, Paula Prentiss, Ray Powers, Robert Rehme, Sarah Robards, Betsy Holton Robinson, Don Robinson, John Rood at Footprints, Adele Russell, George Shapiro, Janne Shirley, Deanna Smith, Andre Soares, Carol Soskin, Jim Stevens, Bernadette Dolores Stewart, Larry Swindell, Tina Tockarshewsky, Nancy Boyden Talley, Pamela Tiffin, Father Robert Tucker, Allan Weiss, Stuart Whitman, Greg Wright, Suzanne Zada.