0:03

Mary was out. After twenty

0:06

years, twenty years of uplifting moments

0:08

of spiritual grace, twenty years

0:10

of vexing questions about her vocation. Mary

0:14

Johnson put on her Paisley skirt and gold

0:16

blouse and stepped out of the convent in

0:18

Rome and into a van. This

0:20

was it. Mary left the Missionaries

0:22

of Charity. Her

0:25

sister picked her up from the airport in Houston. On

0:28

the way to her house, they made a stop. Mary

0:31

would be living outside the convent for the first

0:33

time in decades, and her sister said, she need

0:35

a few things. I need to pick

0:38

up a mattress for you. I didn't know if you like

0:40

the hard ones or the soft ones. Mary

0:43

wasn't used to getting to choose a mattress, let

0:45

alone having a real mattress. As

0:47

a missionary of charity. They'd stuffed their own mattresses

0:49

with wool or whatever was around, and it was only about

0:52

three inches thick. And here

0:54

I was going to get to choose my own mattress from this enormous

0:56

selection. So that was kind of weird. Then

0:59

her sister had an their errand in mind, she

1:01

had a pool at her place, and she knew how much Mary

1:04

loved the water, at least when she was a kid.

1:07

So of all things to do after twenty years in a convent,

1:09

they went some suit chopping. I mean,

1:12

most of my body hadn't seen the son in

1:14

twenty years. And

1:16

there I was going to get a swimming suit, and

1:18

I was just so embarrassed

1:21

and like, I

1:23

wouldn't let her come into the dressing room

1:25

with me. And anyway,

1:28

we found a swimming suit that fit end and brought

1:30

her home. Mary had her own room,

1:33

and even though so much was new, new

1:35

mattress, new swimsuit, new bedroom,

1:38

she still automatically woke up at four or forty

1:40

every morning. It was like she

1:42

was still in sync with the community she had left

1:45

as an MC. She felt that sense of community

1:47

from the moment she woke up. But

1:49

now early in the morning she

1:52

just lay there quietly alone. She

1:55

might even go back to sleep. And she liked

1:57

that too. No l

2:00

was going to ring, that was going to force me out

2:02

of bed and onto my knees. That

2:05

was really nice. I could choose what I wanted

2:07

to get up. First

2:11

thing each morning, Mary went

2:13

to her sister's pool and swam.

2:17

It felt luxurious, It

2:20

felt free. You

2:22

can take off the habit and grow

2:25

your hair and start walking

2:27

around like a regular person. But

2:30

inside, being

2:33

a missionary of charity leaves a very, very

2:35

very deep mark. And

2:38

for me, I've been there for twenty years and

2:40

so deeply immersed. Separating

2:44

wasn't just simply a matter of

2:47

of leaving from

2:55

a cocoa punch. And I heard radio, this

2:57

is the Turning America Lands

3:01

Part ten. Out there the

3:17

world had changed since Mary Johnson became

3:19

a missionary of charity in the late seventies.

3:22

Some things she had a reference point for, but a

3:24

lot of it was completely foreign. Pumping

3:27

your own gas going to be a t

3:29

m using a computer. One

3:32

time, my niece made

3:34

popcorn in the microwave, and I thought

3:36

the house was going to explode because

3:39

I had no idea what that was. I

3:41

had no idea these noises. Popcorn

3:44

in the microwave was a revelation. When

3:48

she left the order, a sister gave her four

3:51

German marks, the equivalent of a little

3:53

more than two hundred dollars for her twenty years.

3:56

I looked at that deposit slip and I thought, look

3:58

at that. They gave me eleven dollars

4:00

for every year of services. Oh

4:05

my gosh,

4:07

talk about a minimum wage a

4:10

year, eleven dollars

4:12

a year. Mary still trusted in

4:14

God, but that wasn't going to pay the bills. One

4:17

of her first jobs was at J. C. Penny in December,

4:21

the Christmas rush. I was used

4:23

to to silence and prayer, and

4:25

here it was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

4:27

and Frosty the Snowman playing

4:30

all the time. And

4:32

it was all these people with credit

4:34

cards buying gift after gift,

4:37

and a lot of the stuff in the gift department

4:39

were useless Chatski kind of things,

4:41

you know, these little figurines.

4:43

I couldn't figure out why people wanted little

4:45

figurines. I

4:49

was used to repairing broken

4:51

toys to give to kids who would otherwise have

4:54

nothing on Christmas. It was strange.

4:56

It was strange for me. Mary still

4:59

remembers the first time she went out to eat in a restaurant.

5:02

Her sister took the whole family out to dinner. I

5:04

was faced there with this menu, with all

5:06

these choices. It took me forever

5:08

to make up my mind. I didn't know if I would ever

5:11

again, and you know, have a chance to choose

5:13

what I was going to eat. It was

5:15

like this momentous decision. I

5:17

think everybody was getting kind of nervous

5:20

with me because I wasn't

5:22

making up my mind, and the waiter had to come

5:24

back, and then eventually I ordered

5:26

something. As

5:31

Mary mapped out her new life, her mind

5:33

wandered back to Tom Father.

5:36

Tom had made the thought of leaving possible. He

5:38

had helped her imagine a life outside the convent.

5:41

They pictured waking up together, making

5:44

coffee, holding hands in public

5:46

without guilt or shame. He'd

5:48

given her a taste of a fuller life, and

5:50

she knew that's what God wanted for her. When

5:54

Mary asked the MCS for ex claustration that

5:56

year of contemplation before officially leaving the

5:58

order, she had called Tom. He

6:01

had asked her, does this mean you would

6:03

consider marrying me? She

6:05

couldn't tell if he meant it. It was such an awkward

6:08

proposal, but she needed time.

6:11

Now she was in Texas, out of her sorry

6:13

and away from the convent. So at

6:15

a certain point I knew I was ready to talk

6:17

to him, and that if he was going to ask,

6:21

actually, really directly, if I would

6:23

consider marrying him, I was ready

6:26

to entertain that notion, so

6:30

she called him. It was the first

6:33

time they talked, and she left, but

6:37

once she got him on the phone, it was clear

6:39

Tom had decided to remain a priest. I

6:42

definitely had to honor that.

6:45

That's that's what he wants,

6:47

That's that's the way it is. And yeah,

6:53

how did it feel to hear that? I

6:56

was prepared to hear that, you

6:59

know it it was. It

7:01

was kind of sad, you know, it kind

7:03

of shut one door for

7:06

me. There's very often even if something

7:08

said, if it comes to a certain sense of clarity,

7:11

it's a kind of a gift. I

7:13

appreciated the clarity that

7:16

was. That was good, and

7:19

she moved on, still trying

7:21

to hear what God had to say. When

7:29

Mary left the Missionaries of Charity, she had

7:31

work to do, not just finding

7:33

a way to make money or learning how to use technology.

7:36

She had to face the way the m c s had changed her

7:39

internally. She told me about

7:41

a time she was staying at a religious center. She

7:43

had moved out of her sister's house after a couple of

7:45

months, and she found the center with sabbatical

7:48

programming and wellness treatment for clergy.

7:51

It was around this time that she noticed how muddled

7:53

her emotional responses were. I

7:55

was talking with the sister who was in charge

7:57

of the place, and it was some thing

8:01

very sad or upsetting. I

8:03

don't really remember what I was talking to

8:05

her about, but I remember

8:07

that I was. I was

8:10

very sad, and I felt like I wanted

8:12

to cry about. What came out was these giggles

8:14

and this laughter. It

8:17

was like, I don't know

8:19

how to express my emotions properly

8:21

anymore, because missionaries

8:24

of charity are not supposed to be sad.

8:26

You're supposed to be cheerful all the time.

8:28

You're supposed to smile. And

8:33

I had just been disconnected from

8:37

what I might be feeling inside.

8:39

How to express that I didn't know,

8:42

And so whenever there was something said, I was like

8:44

laughing instead of crying. I

8:47

think that one of the big things that I've

8:50

been working on for many decades

8:53

now is trying to reconnect

8:56

my emotions and their

8:58

expression, trying to reconnect my

9:00

mind and my body, trying to be

9:03

fully connected. I have

9:05

been consciously working on that.

9:08

In a way, she had to relearn how

9:11

to think and how to feel. God

9:13

had called her out, but in the real world, it would take

9:15

time to shift her mindset. She

9:17

had to untangle guilt and questions

9:20

about faith, come to terms

9:22

with her relationship with Mother Teresa. There

9:25

is no one moment, no final

9:27

epiphany. Mary

9:30

was at that center for priests and nuns

9:32

when Mother Teresa died. I

9:35

found out from one of them who had heard

9:37

it on television, and

9:40

it was it was a shock.

9:43

It was very hard to mourn Mother

9:45

Teresa's passing alone

9:49

without the sisters. Why

9:54

well, you imagine someone who's very

9:57

close to you in your family, and

9:59

perhaps you're own mother, and

10:02

when she dies, you can't be with the

10:04

family. You have to be off on your

10:06

own, by yourself. That's

10:09

hard. I had tried

10:12

to call the sisters in Rome many

10:14

times, but never

10:16

managed to get through. Of course, the phone

10:18

there was always busy, even during regular

10:20

times, so when mother died, even

10:23

more so I never managed

10:25

to get through. A

10:28

few days after Mother Teresa died, there

10:30

is a memorial celebration at a cathedral

10:32

in Houston. Mary went and

10:35

sat in the back. In

10:37

his homily, the bishops spoke about how he met

10:39

Mother Teresa once when her plane had a layover

10:41

in Houston, and he spent about half

10:43

an hour with her, and there I

10:45

was, who had known and followed

10:47

and loved her for twenty years. In the back,

10:50

she knelt in the pew and cried, and

10:53

it all felt so strange. They

10:55

had a big picture of her up at the front,

10:58

and after nearly everyone had

11:00

gone, I went and stood in front of that picture.

11:02

For a long time I

11:04

did. I felt like I had lost a family member

11:06

or someone who knew me, someone who

11:09

I cared for, someone who cared for me.

11:12

Of course, my last conversation with mother

11:15

had been very, very difficult, so

11:17

that's also kind of hard knowing

11:20

that somehow I

11:23

had disappointed her. That

11:26

feeling did not go away easily. Over

11:52

the course of your life, there are times when you have to

11:54

leave things behind, maybe

11:56

a relationship, a job, your

11:59

family, home. Leaving

12:02

the m c S is all of those at once, and

12:05

that's just the first step. Then you

12:07

have to make your own way. I mean,

12:09

the first couple of weeks you're just happy to be back with

12:12

great meals and a great

12:14

bed and you

12:16

know, incredibly loving people around you. But

12:19

for me, the other piece of the pain

12:22

is you're gone for so long

12:24

and you're trying to come back into

12:27

your family and

12:30

so many years of their

12:33

connections and growth and life you are

12:35

not a part of. Sue Webber

12:37

is the sister who ran the AIDS hospice in San

12:39

Francisco. Even now,

12:42

for me, there's elements, and they're

12:44

not good or bad. I think they're just I

12:47

think it will always be that way where

12:49

you're you know, you're a part of the family

12:51

and you're super connected. But there's an

12:53

element that there's so much that you missed

12:56

in that journey

12:58

that you're a lot of time was on the outside

13:00

looking in. People

13:03

don't really know what you've been through. How

13:05

could they? How do you describe

13:07

what it's really like inside a closed community

13:09

led by celebrity sat How

13:11

do you get past people's assumptions. When

13:15

Sue first left, she still wore her sorry.

13:18

She was still weighing what to do, go

13:20

back to the m CS or leave. She'd

13:23

moved to her hometown in Pennsylvania to live with

13:25

her parents. She says, when

13:27

you wear the white and blue sorry, everyone

13:30

notices you. You know, people would stop

13:32

you on the street and be like, can I

13:34

touch you? It's

13:38

like people didn't see her. They

13:40

saw what she wore and what that represented.

13:43

They saw a Mother Teresa. The Mother

13:45

Teresa they thought they knew, and

13:47

that got in the way of her decision making. I

13:49

couldn't come to any clarity

13:52

unless I took off the habit and was

13:54

seen. So she wrote to the

13:56

m c's and got permission to wear street clothes.

14:00

Sue's sister Joan, has

14:02

been out of the MCS for more than three decades.

14:05

She still has a picture of Mother Teresa in

14:07

her office. I love her to

14:09

death, and she is

14:12

I consider I have certain saints

14:14

in heaven that I love and read about

14:16

and call out to and you

14:18

know, ask for divine intervention many times.

14:21

She's one of them. So it was weird

14:23

for her when she was teaching a religion class for kids

14:26

and a Mother Teresa impersonator came by. She

14:29

puts an outfit on that looks like Mother Teresa's

14:31

outfit, and then she like hangs laundry,

14:33

and then she kind of tells the story of

14:35

Mother Teresa's life. I don't

14:37

know, it's really weird. It's just you look at her and you're

14:39

like, I can't even explain

14:42

it. It's like, you know what the demeanor of

14:44

of a Mother Teresa none is you

14:46

know what it looks like and what they do and

14:49

really do you know? You know, you're sitting

14:52

there and you're like, Okay, that's not true, that's

14:54

not true. You know what I mean. It's like they

14:56

try to understand by her readings or

14:58

her or things that have and written about her, but

15:01

they really don't know, and so

15:03

it wasn't there. That's all I used to saying. It's

15:06

weird for me to watch someone portray mother

15:08

Teresa. Sue

15:10

and Joan both new Mother Teresa. It's

15:13

a comfort that they can talk about their time in the missionaries

15:16

of charity and they get it.

15:18

It's part of what makes them close. There's

15:20

not many people that understand the missionaries of charity,

15:22

and no matter how many times you try to explain it,

15:25

a lot of people look at you like you're weird because

15:27

of the penances that you did and didn't understand where

15:30

we were coming from when we did the penances. So

15:32

so I don't share my I really do not share my

15:35

story because people can't

15:37

relate. If you haven't had the experience,

15:39

you can't relate. Mary

15:45

Johnson doesn't usually tell people she was an m

15:47

C. It's just easier not

15:49

to go there where It usually

15:52

comes up actually as people will

15:55

ask me where are you from,

15:57

because I still have a slight accident

15:59

in my voice, and I'll say, well,

16:01

you know, I I was born in Michigan.

16:04

Um kind of grew up in Texas as

16:07

you don't sound like that, And then you

16:09

know, eventually I get around to saying

16:11

something very vague, like, well,

16:14

I lived for a number of years in an

16:16

international community where we all spoke

16:18

English, but hardly anyone as their

16:20

first language, and I had to develop

16:23

a way of speaking so they could understand

16:25

me with clear vowels and clear

16:27

consonants, and they'll

16:29

look at me with this big question mark on

16:31

on their faces. And sometimes

16:34

I just have to explain what I did with my life

16:36

for twenty years. And when I

16:38

do, people who aren't Catholic,

16:40

they say, oh, what a wonderful

16:42

thing to have done with two decades of your life.

16:45

And tell me about mother

16:47

Teresa. What was she really like? Nearly,

16:50

without exception Catholics,

16:53

they say why did you leave? Because

16:55

there are some acceptable reasons for leaving

16:57

in some that aren't. I

17:01

had so much shame. Kelly

17:03

Dunham, the former sister who's a stand up

17:05

comic. I felt rejected, like

17:08

Jesus gave up on her offer to give her life to

17:10

him, And now here she was

17:12

on the outside with no money. And

17:14

I really didn't have any

17:16

skills. I didn't have any more skills that were applicable

17:19

to the American workplace. Like I

17:21

was two years old and

17:23

I had almost a four year gap

17:25

in employment history. That was hard to explain,

17:28

you know. And I remember

17:30

I had a composition notebook that had

17:33

like all the jobs I was applying to, and

17:35

I'd cut out a New Yorker cartoon and it

17:37

was a guy doing a job interview, and he said, am

17:39

I a team player? Are you kidding? I was in a cult?

17:42

And I had crossed out cult and put convent

17:45

uh. And that cartoon

17:47

actually helped me a lot, because

17:50

I felt so alone. When

17:53

she first left, she was embarrassed about leaving,

17:56

but over time she feared being judged for joining

17:58

in the first place. Yeah, I was more

18:00

closeted about it. I

18:04

didn't know anybody else who was an ex nun. And

18:06

then as I started going to something called the Conference

18:08

for Catholic Lesbians, and

18:10

the whole thing was full of X nons. Kelly

18:13

was done to learn just how many lesbian x nuns

18:15

there were. They had pool parties and prayed

18:17

the Rosary, which I thought was like such a great thing

18:19

to do at a pool party. And then at some point everyone

18:22

took off all the clothes and went swimming, and I was

18:24

like, this is great. This is than

18:26

the convent, this is really great. When

18:33

Colette Livermore left the m c s and went

18:35

home in Australia, mother Teresa

18:38

sent her letters asking her to come back. She

18:41

talked little cards inside them. Three

18:43

times she sent me, uh

18:46

God, depicting a crossed

18:48

figure. In the illustration, Jesus

18:50

was covered in wounds and bleeding, with his hands

18:52

tied, with her riding

18:55

at the bottom, saying be the one. But

18:57

Collette didn't go back. It's edge

19:00

pursued what she dreamed of as a teenager. She

19:02

went to medical school. Most

19:04

of her classmates were thirteen years younger than she

19:06

was. She says in med school she learned

19:08

to think again, to doubt, to analyze

19:11

the evidence rather than to give unquestioning assent

19:13

to what she was told. But even

19:15

as her world view shifted, she still felt the shadow

19:18

of her eleven years as an MC. In

19:20

med school, she avoided telling people she'd been a

19:22

sister with mother Teresa. They treated

19:25

her differently if they knew, and

19:27

instead of volunteering for procedures, she'd find

19:29

herself hanging back hoping she wouldn't be selected.

19:32

My confidence was gone. I

19:35

was very unassertive as well. You

19:39

know in classes, who got all these young people

19:42

around you bringing with self confidence

19:45

and they want to have a go as

19:48

a doctor. For a while she worked in Northern Australia

19:51

and every week or two she'd fly two hundred and eighty

19:53

miles on a mail carrier to a remote settlement

19:56

and treat the Aboriginal community there. Sometimes

19:59

Collet work alongside EMC sisters. On

20:02

a rare occasion, when Colett got a chance to eat

20:04

a meal with them, they asked her why she

20:06

left. She explained,

20:08

and Collett found that they too had experiences

20:11

when superiors told them to refuse help to the

20:13

sick. She was relieved

20:15

it validated her experience. Collett's

20:19

professional life was fulfilling. Her

20:21

work as a doctor was busy and she got a chance

20:23

to travel and experience cultures that were new to

20:25

her. Her life was full, but

20:28

the empty imprint was there. Well,

20:30

I haven't married, I

20:33

would have liked to have. I

20:38

was really really wanting to find

20:40

a life partner, but

20:43

it just it just didn't happen.

20:46

Do you think the missionaries of charity had affected

20:49

some of that? Was it timing or also just

20:51

kind of it took a while to break out of that mindset,

20:54

do you think? Or Oh? I think it was both.

20:57

I know I did want a

20:59

partner and to have kids

21:01

because the biological clock was

21:03

ticking, I had very

21:06

poor self confidence. I

21:08

mean, lots of people leave the comment

21:11

and find partners the next day, so

21:13

I don't know what it is with me.

21:16

That's what I chused to wonder. But

21:19

yeah, I didn't anyway,

21:21

and I'd get very sad and thinking

21:24

everyone can find a partner except me, what's

21:26

wrong with me? Blah blah blah

21:29

and so. But I got over

21:31

that in a while. I

21:33

thought, you know, if it happens, it happens.

21:35

But never did. Oh,

21:41

everybody gets a lonely Sometimes I'd

21:45

get hope from friendships, and I

21:48

find hoping. You know, my

21:51

nephews had a new little girl.

21:54

She's beautiful. I've got a great

21:56

nieces and I find a

21:59

lot of solace nature and beautiful

22:01

things when I go

22:03

bush walking and seeing flowers

22:07

and beautiful vistas of the sea. All

22:10

that makes me feel happy. You get

22:12

those moments where

22:15

you're just there and it's everything.

22:20

The most important thing is

22:23

love. Everything you can do to

22:25

strengthen that is

22:27

the most valuable thing. I

22:36

would have been happy to date there. Nobody

22:38

was interested in me. I really

22:41

stuck out in Southeast Texas.

22:43

You know, I wasn't really kind of dating material

22:46

also in the beginning, and

22:49

I was still trying to figure things out

22:51

for a while. Mary Johnson toyed with the idea

22:54

of starting her own community, one

22:56

for women and men, open to many

22:58

faiths, even those with no faith. It would

23:01

be only the good parts of the MCS, a

23:03

life focused on love and serving the poor.

23:06

She ended up working a number of different jobs.

23:09

She ironed clothes, worked as a receptionist

23:12

in a doctor's office, and as a

23:14

liturgical director at a church. She

23:16

went back to college and then went on to graduate

23:18

school to study writing, and

23:20

that's where she met Luke and

23:23

we just had an immediate connection.

23:26

About three years after she left the m c

23:29

S, Mary was at a ten day writing residency.

23:32

On her first day, she was overwhelmed and intimidated

23:35

the people she met, pontificated about authors

23:37

she'd never heard of. At

23:40

lunch, a charming but shy fellow

23:42

residence that opposite her, they

23:44

started talking. Luke

23:46

was a doctor, but he was studying poetry.

23:49

He'd gotten frustrated with parts of being a physician,

23:51

like dealing with insurance companies, and

23:53

he felt like studying poetry was a way to restore

23:56

his soul. And I

23:58

wouldn't even say that we ever really

24:00

dated. It was this one

24:03

week together. I went back to Texas

24:05

and uh, you know, within

24:07

a couple of months he was inviting me

24:10

to move in, and that was it. Mary

24:13

says Luke was a good listener, creative,

24:15

quirky, the type of person who wants

24:17

to keep growing, always improving with time,

24:20

getting deeper better. Somehow they

24:23

could talk for hours. Moving

24:25

in with Luke for the first time put on display

24:27

how many habits from MC life were still a part

24:30

of Mary. She apologized constantly

24:32

for things that didn't matter, because that's

24:35

what she did for twenty years. If

24:37

you broke a plate as a missionary

24:39

of charity, you had to kneel down and kiss

24:41

the floor and confess your fault for having busted

24:43

displayed, and so you

24:45

know, I was apologizing. I

24:47

was asking permission for things

24:49

that nobody asks permission for. You know, it

24:52

wouldn't be all right if I

24:54

have a cup of tea. Now we're you know, just

24:56

ridiculous things. But it

24:58

took a long time for a lot those things to fall

25:01

away for me. Getting

25:03

closer with Luke allowed to process some

25:06

of her darker times with the MCS. She

25:08

says he recognized what she was struggling with,

25:11

partly because of his past experience. In

25:14

college, he worked on a crisis intervention

25:16

hotline and he had also

25:19

been on a board of an abused

25:21

women's shelter, so he was very

25:24

familiar with the cycle of

25:27

women who get get stuck

25:29

in abusive relationships of one sort

25:31

or another. And I think he saw my relationship

25:34

with the Church, with Mother Teresa, with Jesus

25:37

as having a lot of those elements

25:39

of abuse, and how

25:42

very often that abuse can be

25:44

something that actually strengthens

25:46

the bond between the abuser and the

25:48

abused, reinforcing

25:51

feelings of guilt, reinforcing an

25:53

unequal power dynamic, um

25:56

holding you captive in one sense

25:59

or another. So I think he understood

26:02

all of that even more clearly than

26:04

I did. Mary

26:07

was racked with guilt for

26:10

disappointing Mother Teresa, for turning

26:12

her back on her vows in

26:14

the convent. She had rituals that helped with the guilt,

26:17

and she had the discipline. Without

26:20

those, it lingered, and she couldn't

26:22

hide it from Luke. At one point, I

26:24

was still feeling all this guilt

26:27

for all sorts of things. One day I

26:29

said, beat me, beat me. And

26:32

he knew about the discipline. He had seen

26:34

the callouses on my knees,

26:36

he'd seen the scars on my arm.

26:38

He he knew that history

26:41

there and

26:43

helped me in his arms for a

26:45

long time. And I cried, And you

26:48

know, it took a while for the guilt

26:51

to go away. It took a long while. Yeah.

27:24

When Mary left the Missionaries of Charity, she

27:26

often dreamt about the sisters she'd left behind.

27:29

They weren't happy dreams. She'd

27:31

be in a tunnel trying to run away, the sister

27:33

is chasing her. Or she'd be in a

27:35

house with the sisters and they'd block all the

27:37

exits so she couldn't get out. When I

27:39

awake from those dreams, so I realized there's

27:41

this icky residues still kind of

27:43

stuck to me, and I can't

27:46

get rid of this goopy,

27:48

tary stuff that's clinging,

27:51

you know, to me metaphorically. When

27:55

she moved to Vermont to be with Luke, she stopped

27:58

going to church every week. She

28:00

was still religious, but things just didn't feel

28:02

as sure as they used to. I began

28:04

to feel more and more that the

28:07

church, in many ways just wasn't

28:10

making a lot of sense. Now

28:13

she had a chance to explore her own spirituality,

28:16

to reclaim faith for herself, to find

28:18

a way to relate to God without that relationship

28:20

being mediated by rituals and rules. It

28:23

was liberating, but it was also confusing.

28:27

So it was just a couple of years after I had

28:29

left the Sisters, and I've been

28:31

through so many different changes. I was trying to figure

28:33

out, you know, do

28:35

I even believe in God anymore? I

28:38

don't know. And it

28:42

was confusing because there has

28:44

been all these promises about how God

28:47

was going to take care of you and this and that,

28:49

and I don't know. It just didn't seem to be happening

28:51

exactly in the way that everything

28:54

was just so confusing. She

28:58

and Luke lived in an idyllic house at

29:00

the end of a road with a forest behind it. She

29:03

went out on a walk one day. I

29:06

went up on this hill in

29:09

the green mountains, overlooking upond.

29:14

She thought about this God that used to be her best

29:16

friend, who she talked to and saying

29:18

to on the playground as a kid, the

29:21

God who became her spouse. I

29:23

just stood up and I shouted.

29:26

I shouted, God, if you're out there,

29:28

I need to know. I really need to know.

29:30

Please tell me, Hey,

29:33

listen, I need to know. And

29:42

there was no immediate revelation, but

29:46

it was just a gradual

29:50

coming to unawareness that what

29:52

other people meant when they said God, that

29:55

didn't seem accurate from

29:57

my perspective. Eventually

30:02

she became an atheist. She

30:04

says, the stories about God just don't ring true

30:06

anymore. Physics

30:08

and literature and music they

30:10

feel honest. She says,

30:12

the mystery of the universe is exciting. She's

30:15

okay living with questions. It just

30:17

became very clear to me that

30:20

reality was a lot bigger

30:23

than religion, and

30:26

that any effort to contain reality

30:29

in a box or in a story was

30:31

doing a disservice. How

30:36

much harm do we do by

30:38

pretending to know things that it's impossible

30:41

to know. But

30:44

she still thinks love is at the center of it all.

30:47

When you say love and is it a feeling

30:49

or is it an action? Is it is love something

30:51

someone will's love is both

30:53

a noun and a verb. For

30:56

me, I

30:58

seek that verb love.

31:01

I want to love. In

31:08

two thousand seven, ten years

31:10

after she left the Missionaries of Charity and

31:13

ten years after Mother Teresa's death, Mary

31:15

headed to Pennsylvania. She

31:19

went to a conference marking a decade since

31:21

what they called Mother's entrance into

31:23

heaven. A number of empty

31:25

priests and sisters would be there. She

31:27

might have a chance to talk to them.

31:30

She wanted to be around people who knew her in her past

31:32

life and people who loved Mother.

31:35

She felt on some level that celebrating

31:38

that previous life might finally

31:40

let her leave it behind. During

31:44

the conference, Mary attended a mass.

31:47

She slid into a pew near the back. She

31:49

could recognize some of the sisters from behind,

31:52

their gestures a telltale

31:54

slump the way one leaned in. During prayer,

31:57

the Superior General of the Empty Fathers gave

32:00

the homily. He talked about

32:02

the growth of the MCS that a thousand

32:04

sisters had joined in the past ten years. Mary

32:07

thought he didn't mention the sisters who left.

32:13

After Mass, she watched a documentary about

32:15

Mother Teresa ate in a room where

32:17

people sold Mother Teresa books, Mother

32:19

Teresa dolls, Mother Teresa c d s medals.

32:22

She wondered what Mother would think. The

32:29

next morning, during the final hymn of Mass,

32:31

she hurried to the front of the church. She

32:33

approached the superior general at the time, Sister

32:35

Narmala. She recognized

32:37

Mary the Nada. She

32:40

said. Mary

32:42

bowed her head for a blessing, but Sister Narmala

32:45

put her finger under Mary's chin. She

32:48

shook her head as if to say no,

32:50

no blessing. When

32:53

the other sisters saw Mary, they greeted

32:55

her with a bit more warmth. Initially

32:57

it was like oh, stern

33:00

to and there was like, oh no, I can't say that, I don't

33:02

have to. Oh no, Mary, Mary

33:04

right, Mary. Yeah. It was It

33:07

was confusing for them because they for

33:09

them, I was always sister do Not Being

33:12

called to Nada felt good because

33:15

it felt like she belonged. For

33:17

some reason, she still wanted

33:19

so badly to belong She

33:22

hoped she could sneak in to have lunch with the sisters,

33:25

even though eating with outsiders is against the rules.

33:28

They ate in one place, and I ate

33:30

in another place, and I

33:32

didn't belong anymore. At

33:39

one point, she looked over the shoulders

33:42

of a huddle of nuns and spotted the

33:44

person she wanted to talk to you most, Sister

33:46

Prema. I'd

33:48

always um felt a certain

33:50

affinities, just a Prema. She

33:55

it was a very loving person. In fact of the

33:57

name Prema means love. When

34:00

they were stationed together in Rome, Mary

34:02

says Sister Prema even called her her twin

34:05

because Mary resembled Sister Prema's actual

34:07

sister. Sister Prema

34:09

eventually went on to become the Superior General,

34:11

the head of the m c S, a position

34:14

she still holds today. Mary

34:17

called Sister Prema's name, and she eventually

34:19

recognized Mary. She smiled

34:21

and took both of Mary's hands in hers. Sister

34:24

Donata, she said. At

34:26

that moment, Sister Prema was motioned away. She

34:29

told Mary find me later. After

34:32

a couple of talks, Mary was leaving the auditorium

34:35

when a sister tapter on the shoulder walk

34:37

with us. Sister Prama wants to see

34:39

you. When Sister Pramma

34:42

finally talked to Mary, she told her she

34:44

wished she could invite her to lunch, but Mary knows

34:46

the rules. We were talking and

34:48

at a certain point she turn't

34:51

me and she said, but you

34:53

still love the sisters, don't you? I

34:56

said, of course I love the sisters. Had

34:59

you heard that ques from sisters before? When

35:02

I left? The sisters asked

35:05

me one of them, just a couple of days

35:07

before I left, when everybody knew I was going to

35:11

my sister, will you still love us? And

35:13

I said yes. It's

35:15

always very touching for me because they

35:18

knew that I loved them,

35:21

and they knew that for them it

35:24

was that was an important question.

35:28

I think it wasn't always obvious

35:32

that people in authority and the missionaries of

35:34

charity actually really cared for their fellow

35:36

sisters. It was a sorrow

35:38

and a disappointment to Mother Teresa

35:41

as well. But

35:43

um the sisters had

35:46

had felt that from me, Otherwise they

35:48

would never have asked that question, do

35:51

you still love us? And

35:53

that it was still important to them

35:55

after so much

35:57

time. It was very touching

35:59

too. I've

36:15

interviewed Mary for hours over many months.

36:18

She says, looking back at her story is strange.

36:21

It's been a long time, almost twenty

36:23

five years since she left. She leads

36:25

a totally different life now. She married

36:27

Luke. She taught creative writing

36:29

and Italian. She officiates

36:32

weddings as a humanist, non religious celebrant.

36:35

She wrote a book. She helped create

36:37

a community and platform for female writers.

36:40

And they are free time. She and Luke watch movies,

36:42

go to film festivals. They bike,

36:45

they read, they garden, they talk.

36:49

She says when she looks back at that young woman

36:51

in a sorry that Mary is

36:53

a different person. I

37:01

do remember once when

37:03

I was cleaning my office, I saw

37:05

this box at the top of my bookcase,

37:07

and I didn't remember what was inside it,

37:10

you know, And I said, well, what what's in

37:12

that box? Why am I keeping that box way up

37:14

there? She took down the box

37:16

and opened it, and she saw all of these

37:18

things from her time as a missionary of charity.

37:21

There's a scapular, which is a small wearable

37:23

token that depicts Mother Mary holding

37:26

Jesus. There was a rosary

37:28

made by an MC sister from Seeds Miraculous

37:31

Metals, Mother Teresa's hair in a plastic

37:33

case. And

37:36

then there was a cross the size of her hand

37:38

with an iron Jesus on it. The

37:40

crucifix Mother Teresa wedged between Mary

37:42

sorry and belt during her vows. When

37:45

Jesus became Mary's spouse, she

37:48

thought she'd wear this cross until she died. And

37:51

when I saw this cross, and I hadn't seen

37:53

a crucifix for a long time, it

37:55

struck me in such a completely different

37:58

way than it had before. And it was like, this

38:02

is a man being tortured to

38:04

death, and it struck

38:06

me as a kind of a tragic thing. For

38:17

a while, Mary wrestled with her relationship

38:20

with Mother Teresa. It felt

38:22

complicated and therapy.

38:24

She did the empty chair exercise to talk to her,

38:27

where you like, pretend there's some person in the chair in

38:29

front of you and you talk to them. I did that

38:31

sort of thing, but nothing felt

38:33

like closure. When

38:36

she left the Missionaries of Charity, Mary

38:38

received a lot of letters from sisters telling

38:40

her to come back, and

38:42

one of them sister included notes from

38:44

a talk that an empty father gave after Mother

38:47

Teresa died. The

38:49

pages are crinkled now. The typewritten

38:51

notes are cramped and tight up against the

38:53

margins. Not to waste paper the

38:56

Empty Way and

38:58

this rough transcript. The Friest

39:00

described Mother Teresa at the end of her life

39:02

in the months leading up to her death, and

39:06

in these notes it

39:08

said that Mother was

39:11

walking the halls of mother house

39:14

saying, no one loves

39:16

Mother in her own house. We

39:20

loved her, but she didn't. She

39:22

didn't feel that all

39:24

those rules that kept us so far from

39:27

each other, and that we're never supposed to

39:29

reveal ourselves really to each

39:31

other. It's just all of these wonderful

39:33

women living in their own little cages

39:35

of loneliness. And Mother at

39:38

the end of her life, whom all the world

39:40

loved and admired, is

39:42

walking the halls saying, no

39:45

one loves me. I

39:49

don't think that you

39:51

have to be lonely

39:55

to serve God. H

40:10

There are so many images of Mother Teresa

40:12

and Mary's memory, her toughness,

40:15

her sharp eyes, Mother's firm

40:17

hand on her head for a blessing, when

40:20

Mother pressed a crucifix against her lips when

40:22

she was just an aspirant, when they traveled

40:24

to Sweden together and shared a room with two twin

40:26

beds, Mother hitting the desk

40:28

in their last conversation as

40:31

she pleaded with Mary to talk to mother tell

40:33

Mother explained to mother why she

40:35

wanted to leave, how Mary

40:38

refused mother's disappointment.

40:43

Mary dreamt about Mother Teresa for a few

40:45

years after she left the m c's. Those

40:49

dreams weren't nightmares, they were calm.

40:53

The last one she remembers, Mary

40:55

was lying in her own bed. Mother Teresa

40:57

walked in and without saying anything,

41:00

she went to the bed and lay down next to Mary

41:02

in this sweet way. They

41:04

were side by side, just close to each

41:07

other. I don't

41:09

remember that she said anything, but there

41:11

was just this feeling that she

41:14

understood me. She

41:17

wasn't mad at me anymore. One

41:36

thing that's helped Mary talk about her past is

41:38

something her husband, Luke said. He

41:40

told her, just remember it's a love story.

41:43

I agree. But love

41:45

comes in many forms, and some

41:48

aren't healthy. I've learned that in

41:50

my own life, and I've learned it from

41:52

the story. Sometimes

41:55

I think about all of the hurt I've heard about from

41:57

these former missionaries of charity, sisters

41:59

who gave everything of themselves and suffered

42:02

in the process. Love

42:04

to be real has to hurt. Mother Teresa used

42:06

to say, maybe

42:08

love hurts, but it's usually

42:10

a side effect, not a goal. I

42:14

don't think sacrificing people for the sake of a

42:16

mission is right, no

42:18

matter how much love they feel. I'm

42:21

grateful to the former Sisters who shared their stories,

42:24

but it hasn't been easy for them. Hurt

42:26

was part of the telling too, but

42:29

they shared their stories because it felt worth it.

42:33

I think it's worth it to look at why we put people on

42:35

pedestals and what can happen when

42:37

we assume someone in power is perfect. You

42:41

could say a series like this is digging up old

42:43

dirt, and maybe it is, but

42:46

you can also hear it as a story from people

42:48

who are just as important as Mother Teresa, just

42:51

as human and just as valuable, who

42:54

should also be heard. It's

42:56

not easy to figure out exactly what's right

42:59

when beliefs and God are involved, but

43:02

it's worth talking about. It's worth

43:04

listening to. If you ask

43:06

me, that's love. The

44:12

Turning is written by Allen lance Lesser and Me.

44:14

Our producers are Allen lance Lesser and Emily

44:17

Foreman. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal.

44:20

Andrea Aswah is our digital producer. Fact

44:22

checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. So

44:26

many thanks to all of the people who helped with this

44:28

project, including Liz mac

44:30

Emily Kwan, Jasmine Aguilera, Organ

44:32

Gibbons, Daniel Giemett and Bryce

44:35

Street, Cant, Joshi, Ivan Suarez,

44:37

Susan Bryer, Susan Fields, j

44:40

Bostick, Elizabeth Gavitt, Chubby

44:42

Such, Dave, Jacob Silber, Gretchen

44:44

Gavett, and Andrew Lesser and

44:46

the whole wonderful team at Rococo Punch and

44:48

I Heeart Radio for their support. Special

44:51

thanks to the team at Type Investigations and Katherine

44:53

Joyce, Amy Gains, Sarah oh

44:56

Luder, Maron Frischkoff, Bethan Macaluso,

44:58

My Guest Hat Ticketter, Christine Rogassa,

45:01

Jen Powers, Travis Dunlap, Andrew

45:03

Kenward, Brianna Hill, Simon Pullman,

45:06

Sarah Gates, Allison Cantor, Nicky

45:08

Etre, Holly Decan, Dan Conaway,

45:11

and consulting producer Mary Johnson. Her

45:13

memoir and Unquenchable Thirst provided inspiration

45:16

for this series. Our executive

45:18

producers are Jessica Alfert and John Ferratti

45:20

at Rocco Punch, I Could Trina Norville

45:23

at iHeart Radio. Our theme music is by

45:25

Matt Reid. For photos and more details

45:27

on this series follow us on Instagram at

45:29

Rococo Punch. You can reach out via

45:31

email to the Turning at Rococo punch

45:33

dot com. I'm Erica Lands.

45:36

Thanks for listening.