(op-stjoseph.org)

The Tidings, the newspaper of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, last week published a profile of Hollywood’s Dominican monastery.

Few people were even aware that a cloistered community of nuns was located in the heart of Tinseltown until recently, The Tidings notes at the start of its article:

A cloistered monastery for contemplative nuns in Hollywood?

Since 1934, the Monastery of the Angels has been operating three stoplights above Hollywood Boulevard — quietly, until a couple months ago when the Los Angeles Times blew its cover and ran a two-page, heart-tugging feature proclaiming that the Dominican monastery was in such dire financial straits it might close.

Fortunately, that turned out to be not exactly the case, although the old oven in which workers baked their legendary, to-die-for pumpkin bread did break down. But almost before you could say a rosary, an anonymous donor came forward to buy a new $30,000 commercial oven, and the bakers were back in business.

Hollywood is a great mission location, according to Sister Mary Pia, the novice mistress at the Monastery of the Angels.

“Because we are part of the Dominican order, we have that missionary outreach,” the novice mistress continues. “And Hollywood is a missionary place, even much more than the depths of Africa or the Far East. That is what people tell us. They pass our monastery and they say, ‘There’s people who actually believe in God in there, and they’re giving their whole lives.’ This inspires people to think of God, just to know we’re here.”

Fair enough, but a monastery of praying nuns in white habits and black veils in arguably one of the most hedonistic locales on the planet still begs the query: Don’t you get discouraged or downright depressed that your prayerful efforts seem to fall on, well, deaf ears?

“I never get depressed,” Sister Mary Pia responds. “God has his ways of coming to people.”

Go here to read the rest of The Tidings article about the Monastery of the Angels.