This sermon concludes our August, 2018 series on Holy Communion. As always, audio is here.
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost – August 26, 2018
John 6:56-69
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Dolores Hicks was born in October of 1938 in Chicago, Illinois. She was an only child whose parents, who had married when they were teenagers, separated when she was three and ultimately divorced. As she grew, she found refuge from her parents’ marital problems in time she spent with her grandfather, who worked as a projectionist in a movie theater. He loved films, and his enthusiasm was contagious. Dolores would watch movies with him in the projectionist’s booth, albeit often with the sound turned off so as to not disturb her grandfather’s naps, awakening him when it was time to switch the reels.
In 1956, Dolores Hicks, who was now using the stage name Dolores Hart, was signed to play the role of Susie Jessup alongside Elvis Presley in the 1957 film Loving You a role that led to several more roles. Sometimes compared to Grace Kelley, Dolores Hart would eventually work on Broadway winning a 1959 Theater World award and a Tony Award nomination for her work on Broadway. In film, she would star alongside actors such as Stephen Boyd, Montgomery Clift, George Hamilton, and Robert Wagner.
Her final film would be 1963’s Come Fly With Me. It proved to be a transformational year for her life and career. She broke of her engagement to Los Angeles architect Don Robinson, and while in New York for a promotional stop for Come Fly With Me, the twenty-four-year-old acclaimed and in-demand actress took a one-way car ride to the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. She disciplined herself under the rule of Saint Benedict and took her final vows in 1970. It is in this monastic community that she still lives and serves today.(1)