Incline the Ear of Thy Heart

“Your ways O Lord, make known to me; teach me Your paths." Psalm 25:4

What a wonderful prayer to start our time with the Lord! Even if we've been reading the Bible for years and have gone from cover to cover, we will never be able to say, "I already know Your ways. I can stop reading and learning now." 

Even monks, nuns, and preachers have to ask God to continually guide them and teach them His ways. In St. Benedict's Rule for Monks, there is this important dictate: "Listen, O my child, to the precepts of the Master and incline the ear of thy heart." 

There was a beautiful, very successful actress in the 50s and early 60s named Dolores Hart. She made movies with Elvis Presley, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Quinn, and other famous leading men. Just when she was going to sign a contract which would have made her even more successful, she left her flourishing career in Hollywood, and her fiancé, to become a Benedictine nun in the Abbey of Regina Laudis.  She found out about the Abbey when she went on a retreat there after an exhausting time in her career. She recalls, “I wasn’t expecting just how peaceful it truly was. I found inner certitude. I felt like this is where I belonged. It became more than just a retreat. It’s the kind of feeling you get when you meet the person you’re going to marry. The more I came to visit the more it came calling to me. And the more I knew God was present to me in a very special way that I couldn’t deny.”

Mother Dolores Hart is now 85 years old, wears a beret on top of her habit to keep her warm, and continues to receive letters asking her about how to find God and get closer to Him. She listened to the ear of her heart, which is also the title of her autobiography, “The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows”

Faith is a journey, an adventure. We need to be courageous, listen to God so He can lead us, and open up possibilities we would never even dream of! 

I found this series of readings by Mother Dolores of texts about St. Benedict interesting, plus you can see how Mother Dolores wears a hat on top of her habit! 

 https://abbeyofreginalaudis.org/BenedictIndex.html