Speaker 1: I always knew it was an extreme religious order because
Speaker 1: it was a place where you could really give yourself completely.
Speaker 1: That was part of the attraction and part of the coldishness.
Speaker 1: I suppose from Rococoa Punch and I Heeart media, this
Speaker 1: is the turning the sisters who left. I was a
Speaker 1: senior in high school and I saw a cover of
Speaker 1: Time magazine and there was this face of this wrinkled
Speaker 1: nun with a white veil with blue stripes, and she's
Speaker 1: had these eyes. And I read about this not in Calcutta,
Speaker 1: who was doing these fantastic things with taking in dyeing
Speaker 1: people and caring for them. I heard about Mother Teresa
Speaker 1: growing up. I knew about her work with the poor,
Speaker 1: her Nobel Peace Prize, her sainthood, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: who she was, her personality, her toughness, her resilience, her
Speaker 1: inner suffering. After talking to the women who worked alongside her,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm starting to When I saw her,
Speaker 1: something struck me. There was something about her. There was
Speaker 1: a force, a power, a presence. She would look right
Speaker 1: into your soul, into the depths of your soul. I'm
Speaker 1: also learning what it was actually like to be in
Speaker 1: her fiercely private religious order. One that's he's suffering is
Speaker 1: the path to Jesus. For some of the women who left,
Speaker 1: this life was not what they'd imagined. The order was
Speaker 1: wired that you had very little time to think. You're
Speaker 1: only getting input from one soulce you oscillated from everyone else.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean by Brian washing. May be on
Speaker 1: the voice of God for you. That's all they keep saying.
Speaker 1: Under your value of obedience, right, no matter what it is,
Speaker 1: and they use God as the weapon. I wanted to
Speaker 1: go home, and I'm a little bit surprised looking back
Speaker 1: that I didn't just go, and I regret that now.
Speaker 1: But I must have been controlled from the inside a bit.
Speaker 1: You could not have a friend. This was specifically prohibited
Speaker 1: if you got too close to somebody. It was really
Speaker 1: you were playing with fire. If you make a lifelong vow,
Speaker 1: what does it mean to break it? By this time,
Speaker 1: she was quite old, and she came and she found me,
Speaker 1: and she brought me to her room and she says,
Speaker 1: what is this, mother, here's about you. And at a
Speaker 1: certain point she says, mother could believe this about anyone,
Speaker 1: but she cannot believe it about you. M H. I'm
Speaker 1: Arica Lance and this is the Turning The Sisters who
Speaker 1: left a new podcast from Rococo Punch and i Heeart Media.
Speaker 1: Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.