Speaker 1: Mother Teresa was always traveling, flying here, flying there. I
Speaker 1: tend to think of her as living a spart in life,
Speaker 1: but of course she took planes like anyone else. Mary
Speaker 1: Johnson remembers us one time in particular, the two of
Speaker 1: them flew from Rome to Sweden. Mary was Mother's traveling
Speaker 1: companion and assistant for the trip. We were going there
Speaker 1: for an ecumenical conference where mother was going to be
Speaker 1: honored and was going to give a talk. They boarded
Speaker 1: the plane in their blue and white saris. Mary also
Speaker 1: packed two heavy boxes of miraculous medals, these small religious
Speaker 1: tokens that Mother Teresa would kiss and hand out to people.
Speaker 1: Mary and Mother Teresa settled into their seats in first class.
Speaker 1: They booked economy, but Mary says airlines always upgraded their tickets.
Speaker 1: They're trying to avoid all the commotion that would happen
Speaker 1: if people knew Mother Teresa was on the plane. Mary says,
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa pulled on the sleeve of one of the
Speaker 1: flight attendants and said, all that extra food you know
Speaker 1: that people aren't eating, that you're going to have to
Speaker 1: throw away anyway, Could you give it to me and
Speaker 1: I will use it for the poor. The flight attendant
Speaker 1: looked hesitant, awkward. She explained they had to throw the
Speaker 1: food waste away. It was against the rules to keep it.
Speaker 1: And she said, oh no, just tell them Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: needs it for the poor. They won't make any fuss
Speaker 1: for you. And anyway, long story short, Eventually she went
Speaker 1: around with a big black trash bag, collecting things from people,
Speaker 1: and of course that's how people came to know that
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa was on the plane. And then they all
Speaker 1: started to come, one by one and standing next and
Speaker 1: Mother would sign things for them and kiss the metal
Speaker 1: and give it to them and pray with them and
Speaker 1: all the rest of it. And when we finally landed
Speaker 1: in Stockholm and we got out of the plane and
Speaker 1: there was the Catholic bishop and the Lutheran big shot
Speaker 1: guy whoever he was in the Salvation Army general, and
Speaker 1: they were all waiting for us there, and his mother
Speaker 1: Theresa met them. The flight attendant came out with these
Speaker 1: two huge trash bags full of sugar packets and ketchup
Speaker 1: packets and salt packets and little candy bars and whatever
Speaker 1: else you can have, these these big trash bags. And
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa saw it and she turns to the Salvation
Speaker 1: Army general, and she says, you work with the poor,
Speaker 1: don't you? And she gives him the two trash bags
Speaker 1: full of all of these little things from the airplane.
Speaker 1: And I don't have any idea what he did with them.
Speaker 1: Hearing this story made me wonder about Mother Trees at
Speaker 1: the Person. The woman who loved to hand out miraculous
Speaker 1: metals so much she ran out. The woman who do
Speaker 1: anything to save a few scraps of food, who was
Speaker 1: tough enough to lead a worldwide organization until months before
Speaker 1: she died at seven. The woman who wrote she knew
Speaker 1: from the beginning she was setting herself up for misery,
Speaker 1: all in service to the poor. I wanted to know more.
Speaker 1: She hadn't always been a living saint. She was young
Speaker 1: once she had a whole interior life. How did Mother
Speaker 1: Trees at the Person become Mother Trees at the Icon.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk with sister still in the order,
Speaker 1: but finding current sisters who would speak with us was
Speaker 1: not easy to do. Gosh, I'm nervous. My name is
Speaker 1: in testing testing. Oh, my name is Erica Lance. If
Speaker 1: you would be willing to chat with me for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, or if there's somebody else next. A couple
Speaker 1: of times a sister would answer a few questions as
Speaker 1: long as we didn't record. I totally understand. Oh, you
Speaker 1: need permission from the mother House, she said she couldn't
Speaker 1: give me. I'm not I'm not interested in becaming a
Speaker 1: sister personally now. Also ended the conversation with God, bless sorry,
Speaker 1: bless you. I can't remember which I was a really
Speaker 1: quick no wow. I guess that's the way they say goodbye.
Speaker 1: Most of the time they wouldn't talk. I'm getting this
Speaker 1: sound that still ringing? All right? That time I got
Speaker 1: the busy super Instead, they directed me to a regional house.
Speaker 1: The regional houses would direct me to the Bronx House,
Speaker 1: the main house in the US. Gosh, just imagine they're
Speaker 1: in grand silence and this phone is ringing and long stuff.
Speaker 1: The Bronx House sent me to the Mother Teresa of
Speaker 1: Calcutta Center, which has an amazing website. By the way,
Speaker 1: when you open it you hear music and Mother Teresa's
Speaker 1: voice A and t Z. But they sent me to
Speaker 1: the top the mother House in Calcutta and the Superior
Speaker 1: General Sister Mary Prama Pieric. Sister Prama declined to speak
Speaker 1: with me. In some respects, the refusal to be interviewed
Speaker 1: makes sense. Mother Teresa wasn't always very open with journalists.
Speaker 1: She was careful about which writers and interviewers she talked to,
Speaker 1: so her followers don't like to talk to journalists either.
Speaker 1: The missionaries of charity are very protective of Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: and the organization. Early on, I was warned by multiple people,
Speaker 1: they're not going to talk to you, but some former
Speaker 1: sisters would, sisters who knew Mother Teresa, who worked with
Speaker 1: her directly, who have stories they haven't shared publicly before.
Speaker 1: When I say mother Teresa, what comes to mind immediately
Speaker 1: for you? Who she was? Because I know her, I
Speaker 1: know her well from Rococo Punch and I Heeart Media.
Speaker 1: This is the turning I Am America Lance Part three. Mother,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling I'm being much too open and um not
Speaker 1: guarded enough in a sense for something public. That's my fear.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do have some apprehension about the I
Speaker 1: don't think Sister Kathleen Hughes worried she tell me something
Speaker 1: horrible or some major piece of dirt. I think it's
Speaker 1: just that concerned that any imperfect detail could take away
Speaker 1: from all the good Mother Trees that did. In general,
Speaker 1: one thing I've noticed is that part of Mother Trees's
Speaker 1: power is that she's as symbol. I think sometimes there's
Speaker 1: a mindset that any blemish or misconstrule could take away
Speaker 1: from that. And I mean think about it. As an MC,
Speaker 1: you're essentially instructed not to talk much about your life
Speaker 1: with the outside world, don't write about it in letters
Speaker 1: to your family, don't discuss it with outsiders. So talking
Speaker 1: to a journalist, I can see why that might feel
Speaker 1: a little strange, even for X M. C. S. I
Speaker 1: can't speak for Sister Kathleen, but it was clear she
Speaker 1: wasn't sure she wanted to talk. It was a definite
Speaker 1: no from me, and I'm sure you felt that it
Speaker 1: was going to be a definite no. And and then
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit just I don't know how he did it.
Speaker 1: He was like, no, you're going to do it, and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, okay, let me introduce you to Sister Kathleen.
Speaker 1: I was twenty nine years a missionary of charity with
Speaker 1: Mother Trees of Calcutta. I was our first American sister too,
Speaker 1: joined from the United States. Even though Sister Kathleen is
Speaker 1: no longer, an MC Jesus is still her spouse. I've
Speaker 1: lived the last seventeen years as a consecrated woman, a
Speaker 1: consecrated virgin here in the Archdiocese of Boston. A consecrated
Speaker 1: virgin is basically a woman declared sacred by the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: committed to a life of virginity as a bride of Christ.
Speaker 1: She's not a non per se, but Sister Kathleen attends
Speaker 1: Mass daily and continues her mission work in the community.
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful to God for all my years in
Speaker 1: whichever path He's led me. If I may say that
Speaker 1: Sister Kathleen was drawn to join the m c S
Speaker 1: the way a lot of women were by a British
Speaker 1: documentary filmed the nineteen sixty nine and Kolkata, called Something
Speaker 1: Beautiful for God. When she was twenty years old. Sister
Speaker 1: Kathleen wasn't a sister yet. She was a college student
Speaker 1: in upstate New York at Syracuse University. She heard that
Speaker 1: Something Beautiful for God was going to be screened there,
Speaker 1: and when I arrived, somehow I mixed up the time
Speaker 1: or was delayed, and I missed the film, and something
Speaker 1: inside of me actually kind of gave a sigh of relief.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, it was just instinctive, you know.
Speaker 1: And I know the guy who was the projectionist, and
Speaker 1: he said, why didn't you sit down? It's so good.
Speaker 1: I'll just sit here and show it again just to you,
Speaker 1: and I felt, oh, dear, I guess I'm going to
Speaker 1: see this. This film was a big deal because it
Speaker 1: showed a lot of people who Mother Teresa was and
Speaker 1: it inspired a lot of women to join her order,
Speaker 1: including a number of the former sisters we spoke to.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to watch it, and I watched it
Speaker 1: with Allen, who is a producer on the show and
Speaker 1: also my sister. So basically, there was this guy, Malcolm
Speaker 1: Muggridge who was a TV commentator and filmmaker, and he
Speaker 1: interviewed Mother Teresa in London for TV and he honestly
Speaker 1: thought the interview wasn't very good. I think it called
Speaker 1: it barely usable. Yeah, but they aired it anyway and
Speaker 1: it ended up getting this huge response. So he decided
Speaker 1: to go to Calcutta to make an entire film about her,
Speaker 1: and it's this film, something Beautiful for God. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting film to watch. You see all of the Indian
Speaker 1: locals who are in difficult situations. They're sick or dying,
Speaker 1: they have leprosy. I doubt the film crew asked their
Speaker 1: permission to film them. They don't talk with them directly,
Speaker 1: they don't feature interviews with them. It's like Muggerage is
Speaker 1: interested in what Mother Teresa is doing, but not so
Speaker 1: much in the people she's doing it for. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: basically what happens is Mother Teresa shows Muggerage around and
Speaker 1: at one point she comes up to these cribs of
Speaker 1: babies just crammed in these cribs like sardines, and she
Speaker 1: picks a baby up that's really a tiny baby, and
Speaker 1: she kind of holds it out for the camera and
Speaker 1: strokes the baby's head, and the baby looks very sick.
Speaker 1: I could see if you are watching this and you
Speaker 1: wanted to help people in the world, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: these people need help. They're right in front of you.
Speaker 1: And that becomes even more clear when they go to
Speaker 1: the Home for the Dying, where there are just rows
Speaker 1: of cots of very thin, sick looking people, their hair
Speaker 1: cut short, and Mother Teresa tells Mugridge that they've cared
Speaker 1: for over two people there that half of them have died,
Speaker 1: and Mugridge asked this question. He basically says that some
Speaker 1: people might say, why keep these people alive at all?
Speaker 1: And Mother Teresa says that she wants to show them
Speaker 1: love before they die, and she quotes someone she says,
Speaker 1: they live like animals, but now they die like angels.
Speaker 1: Now they die like angels. Sister Kathleen watched all of
Speaker 1: this alone and the auditorium and upstate New York. In
Speaker 1: ninety three she joined the Missionaries of Charity, and she
Speaker 1: remembers the first time she met Mother Teresa. Somebody said
Speaker 1: Mother's here, and when I saw her, something struck me.
Speaker 1: I I felt like I fell back a little bit.
Speaker 1: There was a force, a power, a presence that moved
Speaker 1: me somehow, and she said, come, come, and that's how
Speaker 1: I met her. In the early nineteen seventies, Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: was just at the start of her rise to fame,
Speaker 1: but over the coming years she'd become an international figure,
Speaker 1: meeting with the likes of Kofe and Nan, Nancy and
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth the Dalai Lama. There were critiques
Speaker 1: of Mother Teresa to be sure and we'll get to
Speaker 1: those but in the public eye she was a living saint.
Speaker 1: She could look right through you. She would look right
Speaker 1: into your soul, into the depths of your soul. I
Speaker 1: loved her. She she was. I mean, people say, well,
Speaker 1: she's just human and all of that. Yes she was,
Speaker 1: but she was a little bit above humanity. Joan Worcester
Speaker 1: was a sister with the Missionaries of Charity in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, and she said the same type of thing
Speaker 1: about Mother Teresa. And when you talk to her, you
Speaker 1: could held that because when she talked to you, she
Speaker 1: wasn't looking at you like we look at each other
Speaker 1: and we're talking. She almost looked through you, almost, Jones says,
Speaker 1: like she could see into your soul. But what was
Speaker 1: in hers? It surprises me sometimes how much isn't known
Speaker 1: about Mother Teresa's life. The information we do have is
Speaker 1: often clouded with an accuracy, is repeated over and over.
Speaker 1: But here's what we do know. Mother Teresa was born
Speaker 1: in in an Albanian family in the city of Scorpia,
Speaker 1: now part of North Macedonia. Back then, her name was
Speaker 1: Anya Gonju. We think of Mother Teresa as this impoverished figure,
Speaker 1: but her family was pretty well off When she was young,
Speaker 1: her father was sort of a celebrity in their town.
Speaker 1: He was a member of the town council, a businessman,
Speaker 1: and an activist. But when she was around nine years old,
Speaker 1: her father died. He may have been murdered because of
Speaker 1: his political activism. A few months after that, seven more
Speaker 1: close relatives died. It was the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic,
Speaker 1: and they've gotten the Spanish flu years later, when she
Speaker 1: was famous mother, Teresa wouldn't publicly talk about her childhood much,
Speaker 1: but it seems her Catholic family became even more religious
Speaker 1: after her father's death and the loss of her other
Speaker 1: family members. As she told malcol Muggridge, she felt the
Speaker 1: religious call when she was just twelve years old and
Speaker 1: since then this four pears, I've never dealted even for
Speaker 1: a second that I've done the right thing. It was
Speaker 1: the real of good. That was his choice, and that
Speaker 1: has given you complete serenity in peace and happiness, the
Speaker 1: happiness that no one can take from them and has
Speaker 1: never been a doubt or unhappiness. When she was eighteen,
Speaker 1: she joined the Loretto Sisters, a Roman Catholic order in
Speaker 1: Ireland known for its schools and so Anya's became Sister
Speaker 1: Mary Teresa. She chose the name Teresa after St. Terres,
Speaker 1: a saint known for valuing simple acts of kindness. The
Speaker 1: Loretto Sisters stationed Sister Teresa in Calcutta, India. The city
Speaker 1: she becomes synonymous with. What happened was when Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: was here. You know, she's so white, a vibrant city.
Speaker 1: This is Shantony Chacobardi. He's a history professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Calcutta and an expert on contemporary Indian history.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties and thirties, when Mother Teresa arrived,
Speaker 1: India was under British rule. Of course, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of colonial exploitation. Indian industrialization was hampul to a
Speaker 1: large extent. But you know, Colonia connection also linked up
Speaker 1: India globally. People are moving to Calcatta from all over.
Speaker 1: There is a Buddhist revivalist movement, and in the thirties
Speaker 1: it was an epicenter to the country's film industry. All
Speaker 1: the major movie studios were located here. With the Loretto Sisters,
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa taught at a school for girls and later
Speaker 1: became headmistress. In seven she took her final vows and
Speaker 1: following Loretto custom, became mother. She was no longer Sister Teresa.
Speaker 1: She was now Mother Teresa. Then came September. Mother Teresa's
Speaker 1: thirty six years old. She's on a train to a
Speaker 1: retreat in the foothills of the Himalayas, and she hears
Speaker 1: a voice. The voice, as she called it, it was
Speaker 1: very clear and distinct. That's Father Brian Colladay Chuck. He's
Speaker 1: an MC priest and Superior General of the MC Fathers.
Speaker 1: The one person from the Missionaries of Charity who agreed
Speaker 1: to record an interview. He edited the book on Mother
Speaker 1: Teresa's divine calling, compiled her personal letters, and studied her spirituality.
Speaker 1: Father Brian says Mother Teresa knew that the voice was Jesus,
Speaker 1: and that Jesus told her to follow a new calling.
Speaker 1: He said to quote, give up all and follow him
Speaker 1: to the slums to serve him in the poorest of
Speaker 1: the poor. In a letter, Mother Teresa writes that Jesus
Speaker 1: told her, quote, little one, give me souls, Give me
Speaker 1: the souls of the poor, little street children. He said,
Speaker 1: I want Indian missionary sisters of Charity who would be
Speaker 1: my fire of love amongst the very poor. The sisters
Speaker 1: that would offer their lives as victims of my love.
Speaker 1: Would bring these souls to me. Jesus will say, speaking
Speaker 1: of the poor, they don't know me, so they don't
Speaker 1: want me. You go and be my life. Her call
Speaker 1: came at a pivotal time and cut his history. August
Speaker 1: sixteen to nineteen ninety six is known as the Great
Speaker 1: Calcutta Killing in India. Mother Teresa was there. Here's Shantony
Speaker 1: Chaco party again. In ninety six, you had severe communal
Speaker 1: rats in the cities between Hindus and Muslims, as a
Speaker 1: result of which, you know, you had dead bodies festering
Speaker 1: in the drains for five to ten days, a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, killed or named for life. Somewhere
Speaker 1: between five and ten thousand people died. This all happened
Speaker 1: just a month before Mother Teresa heard that voice on
Speaker 1: the train. Then, in ninety seven, India gained independence from
Speaker 1: Britain from the country was partitioned into India and Pakistan.
Speaker 1: Violence broke out near the border with what is now Bangladesh.
Speaker 1: Fifteen million people were displaced from their homes. Refugees flocked
Speaker 1: to Calcutta, and the first thing which must have struck
Speaker 1: her was the huge number of people simply living on
Speaker 1: the streets, and she started catering to them, and erhaps
Speaker 1: to this strained them to her sense of mission. After
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa's calling on the train, she experienced visions for months.
Speaker 1: Father Brian writes that during this time she enjoyed an
Speaker 1: intense degree of union with our Lord. He likens it
Speaker 1: to a kind of spiritual ecstasy. Mother Teresa wrote, I
Speaker 1: have been longing to be all for Jesus, to identify
Speaker 1: myself with Indian girls completely, and so love him as
Speaker 1: he has never been loved before. I thought it was
Speaker 1: one of my many mad desires. She tells her confessor
Speaker 1: what Jesus said. Eventually she tells the archbishop too. She
Speaker 1: wants to start a new congregation of religious sisters, as
Speaker 1: Jesus instructed, but she's rebuffed. They want her to slow down.
Speaker 1: They need prayer and reflection and time to see if
Speaker 1: her call is true. At one point to even say
Speaker 1: she's not allowed to think about it anymore. Mother Teresa obeys,
Speaker 1: but when they opened the door, she goes full force,
Speaker 1: writing letter after letter she needs to obey Jesus's call
Speaker 1: to Finally, after two years it pays off, the Pope
Speaker 1: grants her permission to form a new congregation. In nineteen
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa officially founds the Missionaries of Charity under the
Speaker 1: Archdiocese of Calkatta. By the way, what she created was
Speaker 1: technically a religious institute, not a religious order, and they're
Speaker 1: not actually nuns. They're religious sisters. Nuns live contemplative lives,
Speaker 1: while religious sisters are active out in the world, but
Speaker 1: these terms are used interchangeably all the time, and even
Speaker 1: former MC sisters will call themselves nuns. The Missionaries of
Speaker 1: Charity started with just twelve sisters. At first, Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: planned they live off of just rice and salt, but
Speaker 1: she was advised that's not enough to survive on. They
Speaker 1: weren't dan. Sorry is their habit? Mother Teresa said, Jesus
Speaker 1: told her to quote dressed in simple Indian clothes, or
Speaker 1: rather like my mother, dressed simple and poor. So Mother
Speaker 1: Teresa chose as sorry that resembled with women who swept
Speaker 1: the street. Would wear the blue stripes and the border
Speaker 1: would represent the Virgin Mary and purity, and their mission
Speaker 1: would be to serve the poor. But not quite how
Speaker 1: most people understand it. I think Mother Teresa often said
Speaker 1: that the m c s were not social workers because
Speaker 1: for her, helping the poor was not an end in itself.
Speaker 1: It was the means of expressing love for God. It
Speaker 1: was all for God. Let me explain, and em C
Speaker 1: houses around the world you'll find painted in big letters
Speaker 1: the words I thirst. It comes from the Bible, the
Speaker 1: Gospel of John, when Jesus is dying on the cross
Speaker 1: and says I thirst. Mother Teresa interpreted his words metaphorically.
Speaker 1: She said he thirsted not for water, but for love,
Speaker 1: for sacrifice. She believed the m C mission was to
Speaker 1: sayciate that thirst, and the way to do it was
Speaker 1: to quote love, suffer and save souls. Here's Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: addressing a group of sisters before they take their vows.
Speaker 1: We are fully consecrated to Jesus to serve the poorest
Speaker 1: of the poor. And by so doing, to say she
Speaker 1: it is dust, the dust of Jesus on the cross
Speaker 1: for love for souls. By working at the salvation and
Speaker 1: sanctification to the poorest of the poor. In short, love
Speaker 1: the poor like you love Jesus and bring souls to him,
Speaker 1: or you could say conversion. Mother Teresa knew this would
Speaker 1: be hard. Father Brian says, she signed up for suffering.
Speaker 1: Your vocation is to love and suffer and save souls.
Speaker 1: To love, suffer and save and save souls. You know,
Speaker 1: because as she would say, thirst quench, say ship Jesus
Speaker 1: first for love and souls. And Mother Teresa did just that,
Speaker 1: even when her suffering became great and she did suffer.
Speaker 1: This is how she put it in her letters and
Speaker 1: the work. There will be complete surrender of all I
Speaker 1: have and all I am. There will be nothing absolutely left.
Speaker 1: Most of us have secrets, parts of ourselves we try
Speaker 1: to hide, and Mother Teresa wasn't any different. She labored
Speaker 1: with a deep darkness, a spiritual darkness, but none of
Speaker 1: the sisters in the congregation knew. She kept it to herself.
Speaker 1: I've never bult it even for a second, that I've
Speaker 1: done the right. Think it was the really good. That
Speaker 1: was his choice, and that has given you complete serenity
Speaker 1: and peace and happiness, that happiness that no one can
Speaker 1: think from me. It has never been a doubt or unhappiness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In reality, almost immediately after she formed the m c S,
Speaker 1: the foundation of her life cracked. That Jesus, who had
Speaker 1: been speaking to her calling her, he went silent. She
Speaker 1: couldn't feel God's presence anymore. Instead, prayer felt dry. She wrote,
Speaker 1: there are such terrible darkness within me, as if everything
Speaker 1: was dead, and it would stay that way the rest
Speaker 1: of her life. Almost fifty years. Mother Teresa's darkness was profound.
Speaker 1: She only told a handful of people about it, her
Speaker 1: confessors and the Archbishop. She wrote early on, to him
Speaker 1: your grace, there's so much contradiction in my soul, such
Speaker 1: deep longing for God, so deep that it is painful,
Speaker 1: a suffering, continual no faith, no love, no zeal. Souls
Speaker 1: hold no attraction. Heaven means nothing to me. It looks
Speaker 1: like an empty place. But to the world she smiled.
Speaker 1: By the nineteen seventies, Mother Teresa's Order was booming. They
Speaker 1: expanded through most of South America, and after the success
Speaker 1: of the documentary Something Beautiful for God, they just kept growing.
Speaker 1: It seemed like mother trees. It was everywhere at once.
Speaker 1: She received international awards. Em SE houses opened around the world,
Speaker 1: including the US, with a continent in the Bronx. Despite
Speaker 1: her unyielding schedule, she still spend time with sisters like Kathleen.
Speaker 1: Sister Kathleen remembers what she calls the early days when
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa would visit the Bronx in the summer. She
Speaker 1: would come and the first thing we would do was
Speaker 1: pack the van and go on the picnic with her.
Speaker 1: It was so much fun, Sister Kathleen remember is one
Speaker 1: of these picnics, someone had donated a tin at chocolate
Speaker 1: chip cookies homemade, which we never got. And one of
Speaker 1: the sisters knew I loved cookies. She used to call
Speaker 1: me cookie Monster, even though we didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of cookies around. But she brought this tin over to me,
Speaker 1: and my eyes popped open and I showed great delight.
Speaker 1: And I looked over the front of the van and
Speaker 1: I saw mother looking at me. Mother Teresa, and I
Speaker 1: felt so embarrassed, and so I composed myself. And we
Speaker 1: never saw those cookies during the picnic. And it was
Speaker 1: on the way home. I was driving the van and
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa got the cookies and started breaking them up
Speaker 1: and was reaching from behind me and putting them on
Speaker 1: my lap so I could eat little pieces of cookies.
Speaker 1: And I think I got more than anybody else too.
Speaker 1: She was so afraid I would be left out, but
Speaker 1: that was her thoughtfulness. She had that mother instinct with
Speaker 1: the sisters as well as the poor. Of course, Sister
Speaker 1: Kathleen has lots of fond memories of Mother Teresa, like
Speaker 1: one groggy morning when she and Mother arrived in Rome
Speaker 1: after being up all night in an airport for a layover.
Speaker 1: I was dead tired. I was ready to drop, and
Speaker 1: I said to the sister in charge there, please let
Speaker 1: Mother go to bed. Sister Kathleen insisted Mother gets some rest.
Speaker 1: She hadn't had any sleep. Mother would not hear of it.
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa was not going to bed, And I saw
Speaker 1: her go in and sit down with these young postulants
Speaker 1: that were joining, and her face became the face of
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old with rosie cheeks, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. She wanted to inspire them in her own
Speaker 1: quiet way. And I went off to bed. After these
Speaker 1: touching moments with her sister, she'd be off. She received
Speaker 1: more awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize. She opened a
Speaker 1: contemplative branch resisters, another one for brothers. She added priests.
Speaker 1: The congregation grew really exponentially for a congregation within a
Speaker 1: founder's lifetime. But this growth meant Mother Teresa worked constantly.
Speaker 1: Every time she opened a new foundation, a new house
Speaker 1: of sisters, she always had something to suffer. One time
Speaker 1: she got up during the night to go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: and instead of the bathroom door, it was the staircase
Speaker 1: to the basement, and she fell down the basement stairs
Speaker 1: broke her arm. Another time she did something to her foot.
Speaker 1: She said, every new foundation she had to suffer, she
Speaker 1: had to make a sacrifice for it. It's mysterious, it's deadly,
Speaker 1: and it's baffling medical science. Acquired immune deficiency syndrol. The
Speaker 1: gay plague, as AIDS has been called, is the center
Speaker 1: of a political storm, the moral majority claiming age is
Speaker 1: God's punishment for the gay lifestyle. And Christmas Eve, Mother
Speaker 1: Trees opened one of the first AIDS hospice centers in
Speaker 1: the United States. It was a fourteen bad guest house
Speaker 1: in Greenwich Village to your aviator, sunglasses and a stony
Speaker 1: expression to the press conference, all business more lou reed
Speaker 1: than the Saint of the Gutters. Sister Kathleen was an
Speaker 1: m C at the time. We would take the people
Speaker 1: that really had no place else to go. We didn't
Speaker 1: have televisions for them and all the amenities. It was
Speaker 1: really bare bones. After New York they opened AIDS hospices
Speaker 1: in other cities. That was a very controversial move. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of opposition from the neighbors, particularly in Washington,
Speaker 1: and they would have meetings and they would present these hypotheses.
Speaker 1: If somebody up at the AIDS home blows their no
Speaker 1: or bleeds into a Kleenex or something and drops it
Speaker 1: on the ground, and then my dog grabs the Kleenex
Speaker 1: and brings it to my house, are we all going
Speaker 1: to be contaminated. They did not want us in their neighborhood,
Speaker 1: but Mother was determined. Did you get a sense we're
Speaker 1: any sisters scared when opening these AIDS homes so early on, No,
Speaker 1: none of us would ever express that, because it's like
Speaker 1: being in the army, you're prepared for war. In a sense.
Speaker 1: We were always in a war of good against evil.
Speaker 1: In the nineties, Americans agreed Mother Teresa was the most
Speaker 1: admired woman in the world in an annual gallop hole twice.
Speaker 1: Everybody in Rome knew who Mother Teresa was, and she
Speaker 1: would be accosted every where. Mary Johnson says, Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: drew huge crowds especially at professions. When new groups of
Speaker 1: sisters professed their vows, people would would fill the church
Speaker 1: every time, no matter how big it was, and on
Speaker 1: the way from the church to the convent, we'd have
Speaker 1: to form this kind of honor guard. The sisters surrounded
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa to hide er when they walked in public,
Speaker 1: but the stories were a dead giveaway. Eventually they came
Speaker 1: up with a new method using Vatican ushers. These are
Speaker 1: big guys, and they would come and form like a
Speaker 1: circle around Mother Teresa walking from the church to the convent,
Speaker 1: just so that people wouldn't wouldn't crush or literally crushed
Speaker 1: or wanting to touch her. Sister Kathleen says Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy the attention. Once we were in the airport
Speaker 1: with her and a woman came up to her and said, oh,
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa, I'm writing a book about you. I can't
Speaker 1: believe you're here and I get to meet you. And
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa looked at her as as though she had
Speaker 1: two heads, so puzzled looking, and she said to the woman,
Speaker 1: have you nothing better to do? The last thing on
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa's mind with any notoriety publicity, she she found
Speaker 1: it a terrible burden. Actually, she hated to have her
Speaker 1: picture taken. She just genuinely hated it. So she said,
Speaker 1: I told the Lord for every photo, I want to
Speaker 1: soul out of purgatory to go to heaven. And that
Speaker 1: was the only reason that she would agree to get
Speaker 1: her photo taken. And there are a lot of photos
Speaker 1: taken in Mother Teresa. A gazillion Gazilian purgatory has to
Speaker 1: be empty right close to it. At this point, people
Speaker 1: already saw her as a saint. They're pretty sure she'd
Speaker 1: be and I some day, and Mother Teresa saw the
Speaker 1: possibility to one day. I remember so much. She had
Speaker 1: all of us gathered around and she told us, you know,
Speaker 1: I think all of you should hurry up and die.
Speaker 1: That is what you should all hurry up and die,
Speaker 1: because this pope is canonizing everybody WHOA completely WHOA. It
Speaker 1: also didn't feel like her commanding us all to die. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's be clear, But it confirmed to me something that
Speaker 1: I had very long suspected that being named as saint
Speaker 1: was something very significant in Mother Teresa's eyes. When I
Speaker 1: think of looking at Mother's face, I remember it as
Speaker 1: tired and in later years, like stretched, stretched with a
Speaker 1: kind of full of gravity, of burden of labor. And
Speaker 1: she asked Pope John Paul the Second, what am I
Speaker 1: to do? I have all these invitations and at the
Speaker 1: same time I have the responsibility for the congregation. And
Speaker 1: he said, you give loving care to the people, and
Speaker 1: then you give necessary attention to the sisters. Give necessary
Speaker 1: care to the sisters, but loving care to all the people.
Speaker 1: And she took this to mean that the Pope and
Speaker 1: therefore God wanted her to limit her time with the
Speaker 1: sisters to what was only essential, and to spend all
Speaker 1: the rest of it accepting all of these invitations she
Speaker 1: was getting to give speeches, to receive doctorates, to whatever,
Speaker 1: and there's not what she wanted. At the risk of
Speaker 1: overstating it, Mother Teresa became a victim of her own success,
Speaker 1: as she would put it, a willing victim of Jesus's love.
Speaker 1: One expert told me Mother Teresa was used by individuals, institutions,
Speaker 1: and countries for their own purposes. But he said Mother
Speaker 1: Teresa was shrewd. She had her own mission, and as
Speaker 1: he put it, she used her users just as much.
Speaker 1: One of the more unusual images of Mother Teresa was
Speaker 1: filmed on a street in the Bronx. Mother Teresa and Diana,
Speaker 1: Princess of Wales holding hands. Mother Teresa and her sary
Speaker 1: and sandals. Princess Diana in a suit and heels. Mother
Speaker 1: Teresa was very ill. She'd had three surgeries in the
Speaker 1: previous year. Her recurring hard issues were getting worse. Plus,
Speaker 1: according to the Associated Press, she had lundon kidney problems too.
Speaker 1: In just a couple of months she would die. Princess
Speaker 1: Diana visited because of Mother Teresa's poor condition. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the first time they met. Mary Johnson remembers she was
Speaker 1: there in Rome a few years earlier. In for me,
Speaker 1: Diana and Mother had so many things in common, it
Speaker 1: was it was crazy. It does seem crazy, given how
Speaker 1: differently they lived, the class difference alone, but they were
Speaker 1: both icons in the nineteen eighties and nineties, sort of
Speaker 1: symbols of love, promoting humanitarian causes and advocating for the downtrodden.
Speaker 1: They both navigated old institutions, one the Catholic Church, the
Speaker 1: other the British monarchy, both of them working within these
Speaker 1: very closed systems, these very demanding traditional roles of one
Speaker 1: sort or another, and both of them had internal suffering.
Speaker 1: They tended to hide. Princess Diana once said public side
Speaker 1: was a different obviously from the private side. Public side
Speaker 1: they wanted to pair and said touched and everything were
Speaker 1: turned to go, and who I worried? We've forgotten? Sure
Speaker 1: did they realized that the individual was crucifying herself inside.
Speaker 1: On the day of Prince Sanna's first visit, Mary Johnson
Speaker 1: woke up at her usual four or forty in the morning.
Speaker 1: Paparazzi were already crowded around the convent. That afternoon, Diana
Speaker 1: arrived by limousine, and Mother told me, don't let anyone
Speaker 1: else in the chapel, and just Mother and Diana for now,
Speaker 1: all right, And so I kind of stood guard out there,
Speaker 1: not letting anybody else in. Mother Teresa removed her worn
Speaker 1: out sandals, and Diana took off her shoes too, and
Speaker 1: Diana these beautiful black pumps, and these two shoes were
Speaker 1: the only ones right outside the chapel. And you saw
Speaker 1: their shoes and these two women inside brain and it
Speaker 1: was beautiful. When Diana visited her again five years later
Speaker 1: in the Bronx, other Teresa looked pale. After they both
Speaker 1: waved to the crowd Lady Dyed bent over to say
Speaker 1: goodbye to Mother Teresa with a hug and a kiss,
Speaker 1: and then drove off. It was the last time they
Speaker 1: would see each other. M hm hm. Princess Diana died
Speaker 1: in a car crash six weeks later. Mother Teresa died
Speaker 1: a week after that. She was seven. According to testimony,
Speaker 1: on the day of her death, she lay in her
Speaker 1: room at the mother House in Calcutta. Her breathing was labored,
Speaker 1: she complained of back pain, and an hour and a
Speaker 1: half before she died. M there is a power outage.
Speaker 1: The lights went out in Calcutta. Mm hmmm. During her life,
Speaker 1: Mother Teresa had her critics, harsh critiques behind her simple
Speaker 1: message of love, they saw something else. I would say
Speaker 1: that practically everything about Mother Teresa is a result of myth,
Speaker 1: conscious lies and hyperbly next time on The Turning. The
Speaker 1: Turning is written by Allen lance Lesser and me. Our
Speaker 1: producers are Allen lance Lesser and Emily Foreman. Our editor
Speaker 1: is Rob Rosenthal, Andrea A. Suage is our digital producer.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Special thanks to Amy Gains,
Speaker 1: Sarah oh Lender, Catherine Joyce, Beth and Macaluso, Travis Dunlap,
Speaker 1: and consulting producer Mary Johnson. Her memoir and Unquenchable Thirst
Speaker 1: provided inspiration for this series. Our executive producers are Jessica
Speaker 1: Alpert and John Farratti AT for Coco Punch and Katrina
Speaker 1: Norville and I Heart Media. Our theme music is by
Speaker 1: Matt Reid. For photos and more details on the series,
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at for Coco Punch. You can
Speaker 1: reach out via email to the turning at for Coco
Speaker 1: Punch dot com I America Lands. Thanks for listening. D