All my coworkers know I’m an Elvis fan, so one of them left a neat newspaper article on my desk this morning. It’s about a 73-year-old Benedictine nun who plans to attend the Academy Awards ceremony this weekend. Not only that—she’s been to the Oscars before, in 1959, when she was the young starlet who gave Elvis Presley his first kiss onscreen! Imagine!
Dolores Hart starred in one of my favorite Elvis movies, King Creole, and in fact her inspiring true story was featured in Guideposts in my early days here.
At the age of 24, Dolores left a successful Hollywood and Broadway career (not to mention a dashing fiancé) to become a nun at a Benedictine monastery and working farm in rural Connecticut. What started as a break from her glamorous but hectic schedule became a lifelong commitment to God.
Today Rev. Mother Dolores Hart sings with the other nuns at the cloistered abbey, works in the garden and observes three periods of silence a day. And she’s happy.
“God was the vehicle,” she said about the way her life turned out. “He was the bigger Elvis.” A statement any faithful Elvis fan just has to love.
