0:03

One fall evening, Mary

0:06

Johnson went to bed and the dormitory

0:08

of the MC convent in San Gregorio,

0:11

Rome. Went to bed close

0:13

my eyes. Had this dream where

0:15

I'm seeing a potter

0:18

at a wheel and she's

0:20

just they're humming as she's forming

0:22

this clay. The

0:24

wheel turns. I

0:27

noticed that she's forming these

0:29

little figurines and they're

0:32

various people. And when

0:34

she finishes them, then

0:37

she breathes life into

0:39

them and they come alive and

0:41

they look like people. In

0:44

the dream, the floor of the studio opens

0:47

up. Mary can see the world below.

0:50

She lifts that little

0:52

figure up in her hands and places

0:54

it wherever.

0:58

She breathes life into a figure green and

1:00

sets it down on a busy street in Hong Kong.

1:03

She puts another one in a gray office, one

1:06

in a rainforest, one in

1:08

the kitchen of a small house. Then

1:12

the potter forms another figure. This

1:14

one has dimples and the curly hair. The

1:17

potter pulls out tiny glasses from her overalls

1:20

and balances them on the figurine snows. She

1:23

takes a deep breath when

1:26

she breathes life into this clay

1:29

figure that she's created. I

1:31

recognize that that's me. What

1:34

I'm really waiting to see is where is she going

1:36

to put me? And so she's

1:39

looking me over, turning me this way and that,

1:42

and then she speaks for the first time in

1:44

the dream, and she says,

1:47

this one, this one

1:49

I like so much that

1:51

I'm going to keep her all for myself.

1:55

And she puts me on this high

1:57

shelf in her studio, far

2:00

away from everything and

2:02

everyone. And I'm so mad

2:04

at her. I'm stomping my little

2:06

figurine feet and I'm shaking my fist

2:09

at her, and I'm shouting from my little

2:11

shelf up there, let me down.

2:17

But the potter has already turned back to the wheel.

2:19

She ignores Mary. She starts

2:21

to pedal, and she doesn't stop. The

2:24

wheel turns and turns

2:27

and turns from

2:37

a Coco punch and I heart radio. This

2:40

is the turning I'm Erica ants

2:43

Part eight, Saint of Darkness.

2:55

At a certain point, I was just really

2:57

really exhausted physically, are

3:00

intellectually finished,

3:02

And I went to my superior and I said, I just

3:05

need a break. I can't take this anymore.

3:08

I'm really kind of scared what's gonna happen to

3:10

me. She could see that she

3:12

knew that, and she was a very kind person, Sister

3:14

Dominica, and she said, well, the

3:17

Superiors are having a retreat. Let

3:20

me see if I can get you permission to go

3:22

on that retreat. She did

3:24

get permission. Mary would have some time

3:26

off for prayer and reflection. On

3:29

the retreat, she met a priest. He

3:32

was just over forty years old. He

3:34

had an easy smile, and something about his talks

3:36

at the retreat caught Mary's attention. He

3:39

spoke with so much compassion

3:42

and so much humanity, and so much insight

3:44

into the Gospels. We aren't

3:46

using his real name. Mary calls

3:49

him Father Tom. Father

3:51

Tom was a person that everybody

3:54

kind of felt at ease around. He

3:56

had this easy going attitude.

3:59

I heard once heard another priest describe

4:02

him as the only priest

4:04

that he knew who really had

4:07

no ego. He

4:09

knew how to listen. Father

4:12

Tom would be the one to take Mary's general confession

4:14

this year. That's her annual review of

4:16

faith and conscience. Before

4:19

she knelt for her confession, Mary thought back.

4:22

It had been a turbulent year. She had felt

4:25

overwhelmed with her workload, and there had been that incident

4:27

with Niobe. The sister who said

4:29

I love you, who Mary loved back,

4:32

but who would eventually pressure Mary to get physical

4:34

and at times when she specifically said no. When

4:39

Mary met Father Tom, her relationship with Naobe

4:41

hadn't turned sour yet. Mary

4:43

asked Naobe to hold her and they had embraced

4:45

for the first time. Now,

4:48

she had this nagging feeling guilt.

4:52

Before she started her confession, she

4:54

thought about all the ways she'd failed her vows. Then

4:57

she knelt and made the sign of the Cross. She

5:00

spoke through the screen, bless me, Father,

5:02

for I have sinned. First,

5:05

she listed her usual confessions, putting

5:07

her own needs above others, failing to

5:09

serve with a generous heart. But

5:12

at the end she added, I've

5:14

bent the rules, especially by showing

5:17

affection in inappropriate ways.

5:20

I hoped he wasn't going to ask for details,

5:24

but instead what he did is he said,

5:26

You've got to be careful to balance

5:28

the love of others with love

5:30

of yourself. Didn't Jesus say

5:33

love your neighbor as yourself, So

5:35

shouldn't you be loving yourself. It's

5:38

not one or the other. You have to

5:40

do both. And

5:43

then he said the words that really through

5:46

me. He said, You're just as worthy

5:48

of having your needs met as anyone

5:51

else is. And

5:53

that just really kind of violated the whole

5:56

you know, missionary of charity life

5:58

is to serve others. It's forget yourself,

6:01

and we're always told that, and I'm

6:03

not supposed to think about ourselves even and

6:06

I thought, wow, okay,

6:09

so he went straight by the inappropriate

6:11

affection thing and went to that place inside

6:14

where I wasn't loving myself.

6:26

Mary returned to the convent and

6:28

a year later she became Niobe's Churtian

6:30

mistress, preparing her for final

6:32

vows. You remember what happened,

6:35

Mary says. She told Niobe the relationship needed

6:38

to change. As her mistress, it could

6:40

no longer continue. But Naobe

6:42

didn't stop. She requested

6:44

to have a bed by Mary's and then at night

6:47

she'd reach over, unbuttoned Mary's night

6:49

dress and grows her or

6:52

one time after real class and I will

6:54

be tried to unlace her bodice to

6:56

make her stop. Mary says she kicked Naobeesians.

7:00

At the same time, Mary had other church

7:02

and sisters to take care of. She was

7:04

in charge of rule class and the Churchians had

7:06

a lot of questions for her questions

7:08

about experiences they'd had at missions, were

7:11

they worked with people of other religions,

7:13

or at orphanages with large groups of children,

7:15

situations more complicated than Mary felt

7:17

she'd ever faced. She wasn't

7:20

sure how to navigate at all. But

7:22

what really seemed to help was Father Tom.

7:25

Even though Father Tom was her confessor and a

7:27

priest, Mary felt a mutual respect.

7:30

Of course, the two of them had very different roles. Father

7:33

Tom had more freedom and more power. Women

7:36

can't become priests in the Catholic Church, and

7:39

actually the Pope recently doubled down on this rule

7:41

and his new Cannon Law roll out. In twenty twenty

7:44

one, Pope Francis declared that any

7:46

one who attempts to ordain a woman will

7:48

be automatically excommunicated along

7:50

with the woman. The very first time

7:53

that I went to confession to

7:55

Tom as my regular confessor,

7:58

he said, I just want to know if

8:01

women could be priests, You're the one I would

8:03

make my confession too. I

8:07

was like, okay, okay.

8:10

So this acknowledgement from the beginning

8:12

that though there is this power dynamic there,

8:15

we are both equals in

8:17

the sense of being spiritual

8:19

seekers with some sort of wisdom to share.

8:22

Father Tom came to the convent every week for

8:25

the sisters confessions. As

8:27

Churchian mistress, Mary always went last.

8:30

This meant she could stay as long as she liked, and

8:32

they talked. She liked talking

8:34

to him, she found solace in it. Father

8:38

Tom was educated and smart, and

8:40

he knew the Gospels in this deep, unusual

8:42

way. He spoke of God is love.

8:45

They discussed religion and their spiritual journeys.

8:48

When Mary struggled with the sisters, he smuggled

8:50

in a pop psychology book for her since

8:53

MC reading is so controlled, and

8:55

she could talk to him about Naobi. He

8:58

knew everything although adults

9:00

that were going on inside, and I

9:03

was very happy that I didn't have to

9:05

hide from him. I could show

9:07

him everything that I was going through

9:10

and I didn't feel judged,

9:14

and he would give me good

9:16

advice about how to handle things. So

9:19

I could tell Father Tom

9:21

that, you know, I

9:24

know I'm not supposed to let anybody

9:26

touch me, but it just feels so good, and

9:28

I don't know it's it's

9:30

the same kind of feeling I get when I have a good

9:32

feeling in prayer, when I feel this sort

9:34

of human closeness and this touch,

9:37

and and

9:39

he wouldn't give a response that I might expect

9:42

from a priest. Yes, I know, you

9:44

know, human touch can be very healing. Of

9:46

course, it feels like that. And he

9:48

would he would always return it. You know, more

9:50

than to the rules, You turn it to

9:52

the gospel. Jesus

9:55

says, love as I have loved

9:57

to Soon

10:01

Thursday confessions turned into post confession

10:03

heart to hearts. Father Tom

10:05

would drink coffee and they talked. As

10:08

weeks passed. She stayed later and later, finally

10:11

she could be with someone who accepted her as she

10:13

was. She says, I gave her courage

10:15

to go out and deal with the problems she faced.

10:18

There was one Thursday when I went to confession

10:21

and I

10:24

was reaching my wits end, basically,

10:26

and and as I confessed,

10:28

it's like I

10:33

told Father Tom all of the things I

10:35

was doing wrong, all of the ways I was

10:37

failing. And he says to me, but

10:40

you're doing your best. You

10:43

don't need to try so hard. Concentrate

10:45

on what's important. Let the rest of it slide.

10:49

And those words just the tears

10:52

they fell down my face. I just started

10:54

crying and crying because he

10:57

was being so kind to me. And I wasn't

10:59

used to that. I wasn't kind to myself. Others

11:01

weren't kind to me. It was just like and

11:04

here he was just just so kind.

11:06

And that day instead

11:09

of putting his hands just above

11:11

my head when he gave me absolution

11:14

and a blessing, he put

11:16

his hands on my head and

11:19

said that prayer. And

11:21

when he did that, I just I

11:23

just felt like I was melting inside,

11:26

just this this sense of dislove

11:28

flowing from his hands

11:30

through me. One

11:37

day I went

11:39

and I stood behind his chair and

11:41

I just put my hand on his shoulder

11:44

and tried to channel that

11:46

love from my hand

11:48

through him the way he had done for me.

11:52

M hm. At one point, Father

11:55

Tom said, I just feel it really strange

11:57

that you keep calling me father. Why didn't you

11:59

just call meet Tom? And I

12:02

asked him to call me Mary, not

12:04

sister Donata. And we had been talking

12:07

to each other as Tom and Mary for

12:09

a while. Whenever

12:13

we would have our weekly

12:15

meetings after all the other sisters had gone

12:17

to confession, I

12:19

would sometimes put my hand on

12:21

his shoulder or take his hand in my

12:24

hand, and he sometimes respond

12:26

by putting his hand on my

12:28

knee or some similar sort of

12:30

touch. But he

12:33

never started. He never initiated

12:35

in those circumstances. It's

12:38

like sitting opposite

12:41

him and I'm looking into his eyes, and I know

12:43

how we have both been trying

12:45

so hard to kind of keep

12:47

our hands to ourselves. In fact,

12:49

I noticed that sometimes his hands

12:52

would perspire with I

12:54

don't know, the effort to keep them to himself,

12:57

and he'll be like And

13:00

so I just told him one day,

13:02

said, you know, if

13:06

you ever want to take my hands first,

13:09

that's okay with me. And

13:11

he told me, I've

13:14

been waiting for that, and

13:16

I told him, I know you have. And

13:20

from that time on, I

13:23

didn't always have to take the first step. Cheerfulness

13:35

and joy have to come from within, don't

13:37

they. I suppose that there is that fake

13:39

it to you, make it that if you pretend

13:42

to be happy, you will eventually be happy. I

13:45

think Mother Teresa was a

13:48

past master that she

13:51

always was

13:53

smiling. Collet

13:55

Livermore, the sister from Australia,

13:58

I had been struggling with the tension between what

14:00

her conscience was telling her and what her

14:02

superiors told her. She didn't

14:04

like that she had been directed not to follow her in her

14:06

compass. By her

14:09

eight year in the m CS, Colett

14:11

felt dull and empty and emotionless,

14:14

and to her, it didn't feel like peaceful detachment.

14:18

She says, it felt like the apathy of depression.

14:21

She decided to go home. It wasn't

14:23

the first time it had occurred to me, but yeah,

14:28

I was still mentally

14:30

controlled by the Order and by the

14:33

all the religious stuff about

14:36

God's will and hold

14:38

up. Colett knew she wanted

14:40

to leave the Order and

14:42

her vocation. It was her last

14:45

chance before a final profession her

14:47

lifelong vows. She was

14:49

stationed in Calcutta at the time, so

14:52

she asked to meet Mother Teresa for her general permission.

14:55

That's a monthly ritual where sisters asked for permission

14:57

to use any belonging like toothbrushes,

15:00

their prayer books because technically they

15:02

don't own anything themselves. They

15:04

also speak their faults and their assigned

15:06

penances. So

15:10

you go in the room, you

15:12

kneel down, you don't look in her eyes.

15:14

You had to kiss the floor. That I used to say,

15:16

you have to put your head down to the floor. As

15:20

Colette knelt in front of Mother Teresa, she

15:23

spoke her faults as usual, and

15:25

then she stayed there. I was still

15:28

kneeling. I basically

15:30

told mother that I

15:32

couldn't stand the way

15:35

we treated each other. Why

15:37

we traded the poor, that why we were moved

15:41

around. And she

15:43

told Mother Teresa she seen sisters hit

15:45

the poor they were serving out of anger. When

15:48

she tried to help people on the street. She was chastised.

15:52

This life wasn't for her. She

15:54

was singularly unimpressed. Collette

15:58

says Mother Teresa said, look

16:00

me in the eye. I tell you, sister,

16:02

and I would not tell you a lie. You

16:04

have a vocation to be a missionary of charity.

16:09

Colletza's mother, Teresa spoke with a stoutmatic

16:11

certainty that she seemed to

16:13

have no empathy for her sister, who struggled

16:15

to believe. She

16:19

told Collette she had no doubts. She

16:21

said Collett's desire to leave was the devil's

16:24

temptation, the devil

16:26

pretending as an angel of light, and

16:30

it was pride. I

16:32

forbid you to think like this. She

16:34

told me to take the discipline, take

16:36

it harder than usual. You know,

16:39

strange habit of hitting yourself with a

16:42

knotted rope. And

16:44

she told Collette not to judge the sisters who

16:46

were angry or violent. Those same

16:48

sisters, she explained, might be feeling

16:50

just as much pain and guilt for what they've done.

16:53

Don't judge. You

16:56

may be as displacing to God with

16:58

your judgmental at aitude as

17:01

the angry sister is. Then

17:05

she told Collette, if you think like

17:07

this, you must go to confession and say I

17:09

was disobedient and judgmental. You

17:12

must tell yourself. Mother has forbidden

17:14

me to think this. And

17:17

then she told Collette a story, the

17:20

story of a

17:22

mother who said that she'd rather her

17:25

daughter come out of the convent in a coffin

17:31

than to leave, than

17:34

be unfaithful to her vows. I

17:37

mean, how did it feel to hear her say these things

17:40

to you? She's

17:46

the saint, I'm the sinner. She

17:48

must be right. Uh yeah,

17:56

I think I felt a bit despairing, like

18:00

I was trapped and

18:03

I couldn't get out. But I could

18:05

have got out if I believed in myself

18:08

more. But

18:10

that's the trouble. Somehow

18:13

my inner self, my

18:15

confidence, my

18:19

belief in myself, which and

18:22

the truth of my own thoughts, had

18:25

been somehow undermined.

18:29

I should have stood up and said, look,

18:32

mother, I've had enough. I'm not

18:34

going to hit myself. I'm not going to go

18:36

to confession. I'm going I'd

18:38

like you to arrange for me to leave.

18:42

I need to leave, but

18:45

somehow I couldn't seem to. I

18:48

just knelt there until she dismissed

18:50

me, because

18:57

that had spent years learning to obey, and

19:01

that's what she did. Little

19:05

did she know that the very woman who convinced

19:07

her to stay, who told her to whip

19:09

herself harder, who told her to stick

19:12

to her vows, was going

19:14

through a hidden darkness of her own. When

19:33

Mother Teresa died, Father

19:35

Brian Collodik knew what to do. He

19:38

was ready to start his research for her beautification

19:40

and canonization process. He would

19:42

be her postulator for sthood. When

19:45

we began the cause, one of the first things we do

19:47

is collect the documents you've

19:49

heard from Father Brian before. He's a priest

19:51

in the Missionaries of Charity. I'm serving

19:54

now as what we call Superior General.

19:56

That means like the CEO if you want,

19:59

of the father this congregation. So

20:01

he started looking for anything he could find about

20:03

Mother Teresa, and that's when

20:05

he discovered the letters. The letters

20:08

were in the archives of

20:10

the Archbishop's house in Calcutta.

20:13

They were letters hidden from public view, and

20:16

if Mother Teresa had her way, they wouldn't

20:18

exist well. The Teresa kept insisting

20:21

that they be destroyed, but

20:24

they weren't destroyed. The men she wrote

20:26

to a handful of confessors saved

20:28

the letters. They felt they had

20:30

to keep these texts as they revealed the depth

20:33

of her vocation. They had a sense

20:35

that these were very special, sacred

20:37

even because they were very personal,

20:39

intimate things that we had no idea. Father

20:42

Brian knew how special these papers were, and

20:44

I just didn't want to read them just like that.

20:47

So when Father Brian got them, he took

20:49

them to a chapel and then he started

20:51

to read through the papers. Mother

20:57

Teresa to Father Nooner undated

21:01

Now Father, since forty

21:03

nine or fifty this terrible

21:05

sense of loss, this untold darkness,

21:08

this loneliness, this continual longing

21:10

for God which gives me that pain

21:12

deep down in my heart. The

21:15

place of God in my soul is blank.

21:18

He does not want me, He's

21:20

not there. Sometimes

21:22

I just hear my own heart cry out my God,

21:25

and nothing else comes. The

21:28

torture and pain. I can't explain. Mother

21:38

Teresa's darkness seemed to begin almost immediately

21:40

after she founded the Missionaries of Charity. As

21:43

Father Brian kept reading, he watched

21:45

years pass in Mother Teresa's life. He

21:48

read references to events he recognized,

21:50

but she always came back to the darkness.

21:54

In one letter, she described her smile

21:56

as a cloak which covers a multitude of pains,

22:00

and another she says, I don't

22:02

believe I have a soul. There's

22:04

nothing in me. Reading

22:11

those letters in the chapel, Father Brian

22:13

was shocked. He had no idea Mother

22:16

Teresa had experienced decades of darkness

22:18

and misery. She wrote, so

22:21

many unanswered questions live within me. I'm

22:24

afraid to uncover them because

22:26

of the blasphemy. If there'd

22:28

be God, please forgive me. When

22:33

I read these letters, I felt such

22:35

strong echoes of everything I've heard from the former

22:37

nuns i'd interviewed, like Mary and Collette.

22:40

How many felt told by despair and submission.

22:43

How many felt twisted and torn and alone.

22:47

I get the sense that a lot of them felt like impostors,

22:50

like everyone else was doing better than they did. But

22:54

Mother Teresa felt that too. I

22:56

see my sister's day seemed to be so close

22:58

to Jesus and me. No, you

23:00

might think if you were a wife in some

23:03

similar situation in your husband, you're

23:06

really passionately in loving and

23:08

he's like, he doesn't

23:10

seem to care at all, it would be

23:12

extremely difficult. I think some

23:14

people hearing this might say,

23:17

you know, this example of a husband ignoring

23:19

you, that doesn't sound like a healthy relationship. No,

23:22

yes, it's very sounds difficult.

23:24

Yeah, But then the other dimension

23:27

in this is what we you

23:29

know, we refer to us the mystery

23:31

of the Cross in our Christian understanding.

23:35

As strange as it might seem, the

23:37

closer you get to Jesus, the more you're going

23:39

to suffer. That's the whole

23:41

experience of the saints. In

23:43

a letter to Mother Teresa, whenever confessors

23:46

suggested another interpretation of the emptiness,

23:48

she felt the fact that she couldn't

23:50

feel God anymore wasn't a sign that God

23:52

had left her. Instead, it was part

23:54

of a mystical process experienced

23:56

by some saints, something called

23:59

the dark Night of the soul. It's

24:02

part of a tradition in Catholic spirituality,

24:04

a process of purification that many saints

24:06

and mystics go through one that ultimately

24:09

brings them closer to God, but involves a lot

24:11

of pain and suffering along

24:13

the way. They become a plaything in God's hand,

24:15

as Mother Teresa would say, quoting Saint Terrez,

24:18

like a little ball of no value, she wrote,

24:20

that could be thrown on the ground, kicked about,

24:23

pierced, left in a corner, or pressed

24:25

to Jesus's heart just as it might please him.

24:29

Part of the dark Knight of the soul involves losing

24:31

pleasure in the senses, leading

24:33

to a feeling of pain, dryness,

24:35

and emptiness. Another

24:37

part of it involves feeling abandoned by God.

24:40

There's so much egoism

24:42

in ourselves, you know, so much of

24:44

self is very painful

24:47

to go through that purification. Mother

24:49

Teresa wrote, He has taken

24:52

all, and I think he has destroyed everything

24:54

in me. The only thing that keeps

24:56

me on the surface is obedience. But

25:00

the idea that Mother Teresa's deep loneliness

25:02

meant she was joining in Christ's passion that

25:05

brought her comfort. Feeling

25:07

farther from God and his love meant she

25:09

was growing more intimate with him

25:11

after all. From the beginning she wrote, I

25:14

want to become a real slave of our lady,

25:16

to drink only from his childice of pain.

25:21

Mother Teresa once said there are two kinds of

25:23

poverty, material poverty,

25:25

or someone is hungry for a loaf of bread, and

25:28

then an even greater poverty, spiritual

25:30

poverty, to be unloved.

25:33

Here she is on RTE in Ireland, in and

25:37

that terrible loneliness and being

25:40

unwanted, unloved, being

25:42

abandoned by everybody.

25:44

Even in our own homes. We may have

25:46

somebody who is handicapped

25:49

like that, and nobody takes any notice,

25:52

nobody even recognizes that

25:54

there is this child, this, this man,

25:57

this woman who is hungry

25:59

for love, hungry to be recognized

26:02

and to accept with respect

26:04

and love. The person hearing

26:09

her say the greatest

26:11

poverty is to feel unloved.

26:14

She was speaking from experience mm

26:17

hmm exactly. She was sharing

26:19

in solidarity with the

26:22

other interior poverty as well. She

26:28

would say, if ever I will be

26:32

a saint, meaning be declared a

26:34

saint, she said, I will

26:37

be the saint of darkness,

26:40

of those in darkness, And

26:43

we didn't know what she meant. This

26:46

is sister Kathleen Hughes the consecrated

26:48

virgin who is a former missionary of charity, the

26:51

poor, the rejected,

26:53

those who feel their life is worth

26:56

nothing. You know, those in darkness,

26:59

people who are driven to to

27:02

suicide or drug addiction

27:05

and have failed in

27:07

some way, maybe with their parents,

27:09

are in life. And she

27:11

said, I will be. I

27:14

will be like they're saint. In

27:24

two thousand seven, Father Brian published

27:26

Mother Teresa's letters and a book he called Come

27:28

Be My Light. One thing that struck

27:31

me when I read it is that this sounds a lot like depression.

27:34

Her letters just seemed so sad and alone. Father

27:37

Brian says he looked into it. He

27:40

thinks there's a difference between a dark Knight of the soul

27:42

and depression. And actually a

27:44

number of people have argued for differences between

27:46

the two. They say the symptoms

27:48

aren't the same, for example,

27:51

that depression spans a lot of different domains

27:53

of life, while the dark Knight is spiritual

27:56

focus on a relationship with God. But

27:58

I can't help but think of out the fact that depression

28:01

looks different for different people. Whatever

28:04

lens you want to look at it through, one thing

28:06

is clear. She suffered a lot.

28:09

Mother Treesa got one short respite in for

28:13

months she felt that she was pleasing Jesus again.

28:16

But other than that one month, Mother

28:18

Teresa experienced the dark knight of the soul for the

28:20

rest of her life. Almost

28:22

fifty years. When

28:25

Mother Trees's letters started being published,

28:28

the story of her darkness shocked the world, but

28:31

of course the people impacted the most were

28:33

the sisters in Calcutta.

28:36

When I was reading some of these letters for the sisters,

28:38

they were just like, you know, a wide eyed and

28:42

crying. I mean,

28:44

it was a shock. When

28:46

Sister Kathleen heard the news, she knew

28:49

she'd need some serious time to process

28:51

the letters. As she read them,

28:53

I decided I would take it as

28:55

a kind of a retreat, you

28:57

know, like I would spend these days in

28:59

prayer. And I was reading and I ended

29:01

up on the floor sobbing, sobbing

29:06

because I kept seeing

29:08

her face, that stretched,

29:12

tired, exhausted face. If

29:17

you read about it in the papers, people

29:20

were saying, oh she was she

29:22

was a fake. And all you

29:24

know, it was interpreted in all kinds

29:26

of absurd ways that the world

29:29

has no concept. And

29:33

Sister Nermala, who was her successor,

29:35

called me and she was telling

29:38

me, sister Kathleen. We we

29:40

had no idea, nobody had

29:42

any idea. Mother never told

29:44

us, and she suffered all of this, And

29:46

that also in itself is heroic.

29:50

It is heroic that she never

29:53

she never spoke about

29:55

it. You know, she kept that secret

29:57

because she might have scandalized

30:00

some sisters or or or

30:02

weakened their faith. Well, how

30:04

can she tell us that that?

30:07

It is also though God isn't there. And

30:10

it showed how great a person she

30:12

was, How great a follower of Christ, How

30:15

great a woman

30:17

you know, a missionary? No

30:20

wonder People were moved

30:23

by her and drawn to her, you

30:26

know, because she

30:28

was like Christ on the cross, saying

30:31

my God, My God, why have you forsaken

30:34

me for

30:37

me? I only found that out after I left the order.

30:40

Every time she talked to us, she

30:43

never projected that. This

30:45

is Sue Ebber. She and her sister

30:47

Joan both joined the MCS. Sue

30:50

was a superior at the San Francisco Aids

30:52

Hospice in the nineties. I

30:54

always think back if there would have been an openness

30:56

of her saying it is hard, and

30:59

you know you do you struggle, and you who

31:01

knows where where people would be but

31:04

when you come to find out that that which

31:06

you felt was being portrayed actually

31:09

was completely the opposite.

31:12

I went through a period of time

31:14

of feeling very betrayed by her,

31:17

and then I had to process that all for myself.

31:21

I was I was, yes, I

31:25

was quite elated. For

31:27

some strange reason. This

31:30

is Collette Livermore. Again. She

31:32

was a human being. She

31:35

wasn't this saint on a pedestal that

31:37

she struggle through all this. I

31:41

just felt vindicated somehow, And

31:44

I don't understand why, how she could

31:46

truthfully tell me she didn't

31:48

have any doubts. Collett's

31:51

initial reaction didn't last, though, because

31:54

of course it didn't make her happy to hear about

31:56

this kind of pain. I remember

31:58

she told us in a talk once that

32:00

she went under Pradesh

32:02

in a huge flood and

32:06

there were bodies everywhere. I

32:09

got a hint then that she couldn't

32:13

work it out. She said, God's

32:16

obviously trying to tell us something, but I don't

32:19

know what he's saying. And

32:22

like she confronted suffering very

32:24

regularly, I could feel

32:26

a struggle in the anguish. And she

32:29

said her cheerfulness was just a cloak

32:32

for a very deep loneliness, and

32:35

I think the highest value in the world

32:38

is love and relationships, and

32:41

she'd set up a system where you couldn't

32:43

get any joy from

32:45

each other. I think that made people

32:47

psychologically unwell. And

32:50

so when I knew

32:52

she'd been through all this, I couldn't

32:54

understand why it didn't change her

32:58

her pattern, you know, the

33:00

template that she used

33:02

to run the order. But

33:06

she just thought blocked it, like she

33:08

told me to, you know, just suppressed

33:11

anything as a temptation. She

33:14

obviously went through hell. I

33:17

wish I could have talked to her like a human

33:19

being, like a friend or a

33:21

real person. So

33:24

do I. But as people

33:26

so often point out, Mother Teresa

33:29

was of another time, with another

33:31

sense of what was appropriate. I

33:33

was definitely not shocked, because I

33:36

suspected for quite a while that she

33:38

had more interior suffering than she

33:40

led on. It also doesn't

33:42

surprise Mary Johnson that Mother Teresa kept

33:45

her dark Knight of the Soul a secret. She

33:47

wasn't going to go around talking about her relationship

33:49

with Jesus. It would be like asking

33:52

a woman to explain what her

33:54

most intimate experiences with

33:56

her husband were like. But

33:59

she says she worries about the message. A secret

34:01

like this sends that when a sister

34:03

is depressed or suffering other

34:06

Teresa's dark knight could be used as a reason not

34:08

to get help, a sign that

34:10

she should have to suffer. It

34:13

might even be instructed from above. Instead

34:47

of feeling a dark knight of the soul, Mary

34:49

Johnson felt her soul coming alive.

34:53

Even with her growing closest with Father Tom,

34:55

though there were still moments when Mary felt

34:57

hollow hollowness that made her

34:59

think about leaving the order, and that even

35:02

led her to make an escape plan, the one

35:04

where she was away at the hospital by the coast.

35:06

She thought you could find street clothes and slip away.

35:09

And I was very tempted. But then various

35:11

things happened and I wasn't

35:14

able to run away. And

35:16

when I came back and I told I

35:21

told Father Tom about that, I

35:24

just looked in his eyes and he's just saying,

35:27

you can't just disappear. I

35:29

mean, tell me you wouldn't do that, Tell me you'd

35:31

call. I was like, he'd

35:35

be concerned if I'd disappeared. Okay. He

35:38

told me that I should call him when I was

35:40

having a bad day. We could just talk

35:42

and of course how would I get to the telephone

35:45

and all the rest of it. But he

35:47

told me I hate to see you in so much

35:49

pain, and then he kissed

35:51

the top of my head through my sorry.

35:54

That just I

35:56

felt so good and so unexpected, and

35:59

it's a perfect Did

36:07

you feel like you're falling for

36:10

him in some way at that point? I

36:13

had felt an attraction for him from

36:15

the very beginning, from the first time

36:17

I saw him. I knew he was somebody extraordinary.

36:20

You know, I had been holding myself

36:23

in check. I

36:25

didn't want to go further. I didn't want to do

36:27

with him the things I've done with sister and Iobe.

36:29

That just didn't make any sense to me.

36:31

Um. But emotionally, we

36:33

are having this relationship that deepens

36:36

and deepens, a relationship of trust,

36:38

a very deep companionship

36:41

on the spiritual journey that we were

36:43

both on. And so naturally,

36:46

when you have a relationship where you

36:49

feel completely at home with someone,

36:51

where you've always felt attracted

36:54

towards this person, naturally

36:57

your body wants to go there. And

37:00

one day Mary couldn't help herself. Jesus

37:03

wants me to have life, fullness of life.

37:05

Where do I feel the most full

37:07

of life, and

37:09

I knew that that was in my relationship

37:12

with Tom. That was it was really

37:14

kind of like almost the only place I

37:16

felt really fully alive. So

37:19

just before mass, Mary walked into

37:21

the sacristy, a small room near the chapel.

37:24

Tom was there preparing for the service, and

37:26

I gave him this big kiss. It

37:29

felt just so right, it felt

37:31

all tingly, the way those things can

37:34

do sometimes, and I walked

37:36

out afterwards.

37:38

He says, you know, you're very good at that, And

37:43

he says, but please, you know, don't do that before

37:45

mass anymore. Like that, I couldn't think of anything

37:48

else all during Mass Mary

37:54

started confessing to a different priest after that. As

37:58

time went on, Tom often incur ithed

38:00

Mary to call him on the phone so they could just

38:02

talk about their days, but

38:04

Mary didn't have a way to call him. Missionaries

38:06

of charity did not make phone calls

38:08

without a very specific purpose

38:11

and without permission, and that purpose could

38:13

never be just to talk to somebody about your problems.

38:16

Even if she tried to sneak a call, there would

38:18

always be a high risk that someone walked in on her. But

38:21

come winter, the superior of the house

38:23

moved out of Mother's room to a warmer part of

38:25

the convent. This meant Mary

38:27

had access to that room at night, and

38:29

there was a telephone inside. She

38:32

started calling Tom while the sisters were on their way

38:34

to bed. She kept the calls short.

38:36

You never know who's listening at the door, You never

38:38

know who might open the door. But

38:41

it was just wonderful to hear his voice at the

38:43

end of the day, to ask him how his day went, to

38:45

to hear him say I love

38:47

you before I hung up

38:49

the phone, to be

38:51

able to say I love you back

38:55

well. Mother Teresa was experiencing her

38:57

darkness, feeling ignored by her fause.

39:01

Mary was pursuing a forbidden love, a

39:03

type of love that she felt was expanding

39:05

her life. She had said

39:08

I love you before, but this felt new. Something

39:11

was different from the manipulative I love you she'd

39:13

heard so often from Naobi. When

39:15

Father Tom told me I love

39:17

you, it

39:20

was in line with his actions. I

39:23

knew that that he meant it, and

39:26

it reinforced to me the

39:28

way that that God loved me, that

39:32

I was worthy of that. Mary

39:41

was about thirty six at this point. She

39:43

and Tom day dreamed about other versions of their

39:45

lives other places they could be

39:48

What would it be like if

39:51

we could go out on the streets of Rome walking

39:53

hand in hand, go through the park like that,

39:55

you know, we got the trees on either side one of

39:57

these beautiful Roman parks. Just

40:00

to be able to walk hand in hand in public, wouldn't

40:02

that be marvelous? Or

40:06

to go a little further, What

40:09

would it be like, you know too, to

40:11

wake up together in the morning, to

40:13

make coffee for each other too, to

40:16

sit together and read

40:18

at night? What would that be like? Wouldn't

40:21

it be so nice? There's

40:23

kind of these imaginings

40:26

of things that were totally impossible, even

40:29

though they were so ordinary. It's

40:31

kind of like me sitting here and imagining

40:34

what would it be like to have a house in

40:36

Hawaii and another one in France?

40:39

And oh, you know, it's totally out

40:41

of the questions. It's never gonna happen, but

40:44

you can imagine. At

40:49

one point, Mary got sick a sinus

40:52

infection, a bad one. She had

40:54

to go to the hospital for surgery during Holy

40:56

Week, so she asked Tom

40:58

if he would come. I

41:01

told him that I thought we could

41:03

have some time alone. So

41:07

on Easter Monday morning, I

41:09

brushed my tea three times. I put

41:11

on the most revealing night

41:13

dress that the sisters had sent me, which

41:15

means that it had short sleeves, and

41:18

it had a neckline where my

41:21

collar bones showed a little bit. And

41:23

I waited and waited, and every time I

41:25

heard footsteps in the corridor, I thought maybe.

41:27

But then finally she

41:29

opened the door and father Tom was there. Mary

41:33

had a roommate, so Tom suggested they go on a

41:35

walk, and I said, yes, let's go for a walk.

41:42

The hospital was quiet, most

41:44

people had been dismissed because of Holy Week. Many

41:47

of the rooms were empty. They walked

41:49

into one of them, and we left the door

41:51

slightly ajar, but we positioned

41:54

ourselves in the room in a way that anyone

41:56

opening the door wouldn't see us immediately.

42:00

And we

42:03

sat down and we found

42:07

a physical intimacy together deeper

42:10

than anything we'd managed to do

42:13

back in the convent. Our

42:17

hands found each other in new sorts of

42:19

ways, and it

42:22

was a very, very beautiful

42:24

moment. Afterward,

42:32

they walked out of the room to the service elevator

42:34

at the back of the ward. When

42:36

the doors of the elevator closed behind them,

42:39

they kissed again. We wrote that

42:41

elevator up and down and up and now, and

42:44

every now and then somebody would get on with a

42:46

laundry cart or something like that, and

42:48

we kind of behave ourselves for a little while,

42:51

and then we'd get in the elevator would

42:53

go up and down again, and

42:56

and it's like we just didn't want to separate

42:58

from each other. Yeah, But

43:03

then finally we did

43:06

open the door on the elevator and Tom

43:10

left to go, and I

43:13

watched and watched and watched until I couldn't see

43:15

him anymore. The

44:22

Turning is written by Allen lance Lesser and Me.

44:25

Our producers are Allen lance Lesser and Emily

44:27

Foreman. Our editor is Rob Rosenthal.

44:29

Andrea Asuage is our digital producer.

44:32

Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado.

44:35

Special thanks to Amy Gains, Sarah oh

44:37

Lander, Maran Frishkoff, Bethan

44:39

Macaluso, Travis Dunlap, and consulting

44:41

producer Mary Johnson. Her memoir

44:44

and Unquenchable Thirst provided inspiration for

44:46

this series. Our

44:48

executive producers are Jessica Albert and John

44:51

Parratti from A Coco Punch and Katrina

44:53

Norville from My Heart Radio. Our theme

44:55

music is by Matt Reid. For photos

44:57

and more details on the series, follow us on Instagram

45:00

out at Rococo Punch. You can

45:02

reach out via email to the Turning

45:04

at Rocca punch dot com.

45:06

I'm Erica Lands. Thanks for listening.