Free to think and question and love

What a book! Mary's story is so compelling, and I was always rooting for her to keep questioning, wondering, and, most of all, loving. The book also prompted me to revisit memories of my own experiences within the Catholic Church. 

I grew up vaguely Catholic. My parents didn’t take me to church, but I had very influential grandmother whose Catholicism was central to her self-identity. She insisted I go to "CCD" and instilled in me a twin reverence/fear regarding all the rules – and all the mystery too – of the Catholic Church. I remember her rushing me to finish my Special K one Sunday morning, her gaze nervously darting between the clock and my cereal bowl as she reminded me of the rule that you couldn't eat within an hour of communion because your stomach needed to be empty to receive Jesus Christ. That seemed both weird and magical to me, and I took it seriously. When I told her that I got through the last few minutes of (boring to me) mass by plastering the communion wafer against the roof of my mouth and then laboriously prying it off with my tongue was one of the very rare times she looked at me with anything but gentle adoration, and I felt shaken by the disapproval (and fear) in her eyes. 

I never did talk to her about my disappointment at my own first communion rehearsal when we second graders, in shorts and sneakers instead of our beautiful white first communion dresses, were given real communion wafers. I was outraged, as it seemed that having a rehearsal wafer made our "first communion" the next day really the "second communion." I piped up and asked about this, and the older of the two priests basically told me to shut up. The younger priest took me aside and tried to explain what the difference was between the wafer that Friday night and the wafer Saturday morning during mass, when it really would become the body of Christ. Kind of him, but his whispering let me know that this kind of question was not to be openly asked and that I couldn't ask what was really on my mind, "What do you MEAN it turns into something else? What do you MEAN?"

My grandmother found peace, meaning, and comfort in the church, in the rightness of the Pope, the traditions, the stories, the rules, the way things are done. Her faith was palpable and something I leaned toward, but the combination of parents who had fled religion, stories my very literal mind struggled to absorb, and a teen experience with a manipulative charismatic youth group organization left me with disillusionment and skepticism that I just couldn't shake.  

So as I read this book, I found myself wanting all the nuns who are currently finding their way within the Catholic Church to have what they love in the Church, the very real connection to the mysteries of life and the meaningful lives they've built. But I also want all the sisters to be free to think and question and give and receive human love. I like to think that in that great bookstore in the sky, my grandmother has access to An Unquenchable Thirst and that she's rooting for the sisters too.

...from Ellen Olson-Brown, M.Ed., a teacher, educational consultant, author of four children's books, aspiring yogi, and enthusiastic consumer of art and office supplies. Positive psychology, mindfulness, and the science of human flourishing are her current fascinations, and she loves supportively daring people to amaze themselves. Ellen lives in Groton, Massachusetts with her husband and twin sons.  www.openstudiogroton.com

Mormon Identifies

I just finished listening to your memoir. I really enjoyed listening to your story. Your words are inspiring and give me a lot to think about. I could relate to your feeling of suffocation in your final days as an MC. I had similar feelings 10 years ago when I had to make a difficult decision to leave a group. I was born when my parents were Mormon (I'm the 8th child out of 9), but they left the church when I was a young child. I have been a Unitarian Universalist since 2006 and my wife is Catholic and we are raising our two sons Catholic. Since I was a child I've gone back and forth about what I believe - oscillating between atheist, agnostic to believing. At this point I do believe there is something beyond ourselves - some greater force in the universe - but I don't think organized religion or going through Jesus or anything is necessary for salvation, so to speak. I think the biggest reason I believe in something is because of the story of Edgar Cayce.

Click to read more ...

A Brave Tale of Angst and Existentialism

Only two books have I ever read in less than 24 hours forsaking sleep for: The da Vinci Code and Mary Johnson's, An Unquenchable Thirst. That they both deal with subjects Catholic must mean something. I wasraised in Central Kansas a first generation American by a Roman Catholic mother and a Maronite Catholic father. Catholicism was not only religion but culture. As a young adult I never doubted the existence of God but I did question if the Holy See was the best path. I found Ms. Johnson's account of her two decades with the Missionaries of Charity, trying to answer God's call on her life, a brave tale of angst and existentialism. Most people would have given up early in the process and yet she persisted in living the life she felt called to. What sets her apart is that when her life no longer made sense to her or fulfilled her desire to make a profound difference in the world, she was brave enough to make a change and

Click to read more ...

Gender Studies Professor Observes MCs

What a gripping book.  I typically have trouble reading nonfiction, but I coudn't put this down.  Ms. Johnson, the honesty and courage of your story and its telling are inspiring.  While I was raised in a secular family, I found a lot to relate to in "An Unquenchable Thirst", as will other intelligent, dutiful girls and women who worry their looks make them unlovable.  A particularly bright student of mine in an American literature survey course once observed that the dynamic the Puritans imagined between themselves and God resembles an abusive relationship, and I couldn't help but think of this as I read about the rigid hierarchy, orthodoxy, and seeming masochism of the Missionaries of Charity.  

...From Melissa Strong.  Melissa Strong is an English professor specializing in American literature and gender studies.

Vivid Portrait of an Idealistic Young Woman

I have to admit that memoir is not my thing. Most of the time I find them to be a bit self-serving and uninspiring. Not so with this book. I felt compelled to write this little review after reading others online. A few people complained that the book was "too graphic." Nonsense. If you want to see Mother Teresa and her nuns walking on water and singing Kumbyaa, then go ahead and hold onto your fantasies of rainbows and unicorns. If you want to see a vivid portrait of an idealistic young woman who matures into a real flesh-and-blood woman with doubts, hopes, and expectations, and does so while serving with one of the world's great mythical holy women, then read this book. 

This is an engaging read. I wanted to say that I couldn't put it down, but the fact is that I could, for good reason. I read, I reflected, I picked it up again, and read some more. There's no whitewashing here, but there is no overt bashing. To the naysayers, I say if you don't think this was a spiritual account of a woman's bright light and dark night of the soul, and if you can't see some of your own doubts and struggles, you are looking at a book to tell you what YOU want to hear, rather than what is the truth. Great read! Courageous. I’m anxious to hear about the next chapter of Mary Johnson's life.

Click to read more ...

Fundamental Christian Identifies

I read an excerpt of your book in a magazine and it so resonated with me I purchased and read the book. I was a young convert to a very fundamental Christian church and spent 20+ years trying to live the life of faith it required, including marrying and raising my family within the belief system. At age 35, when I could no longer reconcile my intellect with my faith, I began the slow process of reaching for truth beyond my religion, or even a supreme being. It is daunting to leave a faith when banishment to eternal hell is your likely punishment. It took me years to extract myself, including ending my marriage.

Click to read more ...

Thoroughly Engrossing

Mary Johnson’s book An Unquenchable Thirst is a thoroughly engrossing account of the inner workings of the Missionaries of Charity under Mother Teresa’s leadership. Rarely does one get such an objective account written by a person immersed in an organization for twenty years. Mary gives a firsthand narrative of events that reveal both the great sacrifices made by these women who give up all to join as well as the unpleasant warping of doctrine and political maneuvering inherent in any large organization.

Click to read more ...

What Mary's Memoir Taught Me

I just finished reading Mary Johnson’s book, An Unquenchable Thirst. I want to speak of it and of what knowing Mary has meant to me over the past several years as I've come to know her through A Room of Her Own Foundation events. 

For 20 years, Mary was an aspirant, and then a nun, in an organization in which individual expression was not a community value. Everything external worked to prevent her from becoming an artist. When I know that Mary has tiptoed downstairs at 5:00 on the morning of a retreat without waking me up, and when she devotes so much of her writing year to planning the next AROHO event, I remember that she has lifelong habits cultivated inside a kind of mind I will never experience. I am reminded of Sylvia Plath’s beehives in her five bee poems: a humming goes on inside “the mind of the hive,” while its singular work is sealed unseen, accomplished by many.  

Mary has taken the best of the convent mind and deployed it to serve in an alternate universe. Ours. She is a most extraordinary illustration of how stamina lifts talent. Her habits of preserving something of internal value while running a decade-long marathon allowed her to complete a draft of her first book; a proposal to an agent, a revised proposal for publishers; and the many revisions of her book—and to unearth and articulate the complex feelings of growing up in an cloistered, religious society—I would call it a “cult” if I didn’t think I would offend my Catholic sister-in-laws and friends. 

Click to read more ...

The Rulebook Doesn't Lead to Holiness

I highly recommend this book to anyone who respects the truth, and who likes a really good read. Mary Johnson grew from a naïve young woman to a very strong woman with a deep sense of self, despite the repressive system under which she lived. In order to remain true to herself and to her Creator, she eventually takes the very courageous step of leaving the Missionaries of Charity.

It is a fascinating journey and she shares it with great honesty and openness. Lest you think the author is exaggerating, I spent some time in religious life, and Mary’s words rang true to me. My Order was much more liberal and progressive, but there is always someone who thinks they can teach you humility by belittling you. Abasement doesn’t teach humility; it just promotes a poor self-image, which is a totally different thing. 

Click to read more ...

A Psychiatric Nurse Applauds Book's Courage

I am a psychiatric nurse who has said for years that I am simply picking up the pieces of people battered by the church, and the deep Judeo-Christian roots of self-loathing, then teaching them to love every broken piece as we help them reconstruct themselves. Your book has validated not simply the abuse of power, but the depth of
mental illness in the Roman Catholic Church. It breaks my heart, and it angers me. I applaud your courage to tell the truth; to make it all three dimensional indeed. At the same time, this feels balanced in its approach. Your love of people and of God is evident. I think God had a very special purpose in calling you to the MC's. The world needs to move on to acceptance of the enormous blessing of our own incarnation. I have washed and tended the bodies and souls of hundreds of patients as a nurse of thirty-five years. That work, those bodies as well as the sacred fluids within them, are my piety. You have given much to the profession of nursing in this , Mary, and I thank you for that, too. This was very validating to me in my own decision to leave seminary three years ago, and return to nursing, yet again.

Click to read more ...

Sister of Priest Relates to Author's Journey

A narrator, especially in a memoir, needs to be honest so that we, as readers, want to follow the journey. Honesty and integrity were infused throughout the narrative in your book. I appreciated reading about Mother Teresa, as well as yourself, as human beings trying the best you could to live a helpful life. Your real affection for her and she for you were apparent. I thought you depicted the kind of things I know of religious life, having a priest-brother and hearing his tales, and having priests stay at our house when I was a child, again as real people with concerns beyond their jobs. My brother was, to me, first my brother, then the man who stood on an altar offering mass. These people you write about are not cookie-cutter characters, they are individuals. Your bravery in going beyond and telling the most intimate details of lives denied human companionship on many levels, was important, I think, and you did it in a way that was both personal and private, matter of fact, not sensational, normal. 

Your book was infused with how you grappled with the distinction between duty to obey and the question of unwavering obedience, which translated to me as a larger question of individual freedom and blind faith. I related to your journey in my own transitions in belief systems from child-like faith to questioning, reflecting, pondering. "I wanted the opportunity to speak truth to power," you said. Power, if 'good' authority, understands truth, I think. 

Click to read more ...

The Salve Of Secrets- A Women Peers Into A Secret Life

“Mother Teresa would have called my secrets blasphemy,” Mary Johnson writes in the introduction to her spiritual memoir An Unquenchable Thirst, “but I call them freedom. I even call them love.”

I met Johnson at AROHO’s Summer 2011 Retreat, which brought together 90 women writers. On the closing
 night, she read from her book and gave each of us a copy, one month prior to its publication. We were in on her secrets.

Johnson, formerly Missionary of Charity Sister Donata, examines every aspect of her twenty years of yearning towards good in the proximity of Mother Teresa, replete with the challenges one would expect of the archetypal Heroine’s Journey: adulation of an idol, despair at the disparity between ideal and reality, growth through adverse conditions, and a final confrontation between one’s idol and oneself. Add to that a number of unexpected rogue and essential sensual blossomings, and you may find yourself up till 3 a.m. reading, as I did.

Click to read more ...

Former Catholic Moved By Memoir

What I think I like most about Mary Johnson's memoir AN UNQUENCHABLE THIRST: FOLLOWING MOTHER TERESA IN SEARCH OF LOVE, SERVICE, AND AN AUTHENTIC LIFE is that it satisfies curiosity. It answers questions that I've nursed a very long time. I went to Catholic school as a youngster in Washington, D.C. Catholic schools were a good, educational alternative to the District's school system in the sixties. My father was raised as a Catholic though my mother was not. My sisters and I were baptized, confirmed, attended the schools, prayed in the parish church and had rosary beads.
A former nun’s memoir? Wow!  AN UNQUENCHABLE THIRST satisfies curiosity about vocations, the day to day schedule in the convent and and the personalities of nuns. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since I thought nuns were truly fascinating. I felt a bit of that admiration and understanding return with the reading. 

Of course it is the sex that fascinates. How could they swear to go without?  This is bull session fodder for Catholic school girls everywhere I suspect. It's what my suite-mate and I discussed in our college freshman year at a formerly Catholic girls' school that went secular. We had our "firsts" that first year and we shook our heads and asked how the nuns could have given up a thing like that without knowing about it -- without experiencing it. How much we pitied the poor girls that had.We figured the girls who'd gone to the convents had really been duped -- giving up the wonderful world of sex. 

Click to read more ...

A Story of Inspiration

Your book has been calling to me from the shelf where it sat because I had other "deadline" reading to do.  Then, a few days ago, I got word that an international journal will publish my paper, Writing an Ethnic Identity Between Worlds:  Reclaiming and Maintaining a Franco-American Self after I revise it and tone down my criticism of the mixed role the RC policy of la survivance played in the heritage of Franco-Americans.  True, it preserved their faith, language and religion.  It is also true, that after a point, it became an abusive, controlling policy of the elite that traumatized rather than protected, held back rather than bolstered the ordinary Franco-American.   As I struggled with how to temper but not dilute this point, I thought of your book.  It is now off my shelf and open before me.  

Click to read more ...

A Psychologist's Perspective

I read your book cover to cover feeling like I could not put it down, and when I had to, longing to get back to it. The "articulateness" of your struggle, the enormity of the mission, the scope of the book, the journey, and the sheer humaneness and humility of it...just shines!!! And you have done it in a way that is accessible and completely inclusive...I am Hindu, not even religious...every struggle spoke to the deepest recesses of my humanity and my humility.

Mary, I am absolutely sure this book will change many, many lives...give hope and succor to those who have searched for it in vain...and do so far, far into the future. I dare to hope that this book will last and last and last...but as one of its first wave of readers, it has given me courage beyond description. And unbelievable validation for living a life with love as my only touchstone. I am a psychologist whose mission is that the work of a mother all over the world be respected. Your courage to share your journey to validate your deepest truths has motivated me to speak more openly than I have done so far. 

Click to read more ...

Reads Like A Novel

An altruistic, unworldly teenager, who never quite "fit in," the author joined Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity shortly after high school. As an aspirant, she was assigned to a convent in the South Bronx, about as different a place from the small Texas town where she grew up as a place could be.

     The author knew she would be embarking upon an austere life, that she'd be living among the poor as the poor lived. What she could not have known was that the life of a Missionary of Charity was deliberately designed to be as full of deprivation as a life could be, not just materially but emotionally. As Sister Donata, Mary would find the fact that breakfast might consist only of Crisco on stale bread easy to get used to compared with the fact that friendships, even normal conversation among the nuns, were not merely discouraged but punished. To serve humanity, the nuns were expected to deny their own human needs. Suffering for suffering's sake was encouraged. The world of the convent was a world of rules, many of them so irrational as to border on the comical. Indeed, the nuns were encouraged to "spy" on one another and report any infractions to the sister in charge. A sad consequence of all this was that over time, many of these sisters grew to become bitter, angry and so emotionally stunted that they were probably unable to recognize the cruelty with which they treated one and another for what it was.

Click to read more ...

Former Member Of A Religious Community Weighs In

I am an Amazon Top Reviewer but also a person who spent 7 years in religious life. Your book was honest and raw ... it definitely touched something in me and sparked some of those old feelings. I am a married lesbian now (I didn't know then what I know now after so many engagements to men). This book was a great, refreshing read to help understand the humanity behind religious life.

We are all humans.

...From Diana de Avila https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2OBDNQ5ZYU1L8 Diana de Avila is a former Soldier who served in the Army (Military Police) and spent several years in religious life in two separate communities before discovering she was called to be a lay person.  She studied School Psychology and has worked in Information Technology.  She is married to her spouse Cecilia and lives in Upstate, NY.

A Surprising Read

I confess to groaning just a bit when first hefting this book, which arrived from the Amazon pre-release Vine review program. A 540-page autobiography of a nun isn't exactly my idea of light reading! But this turned out to be a real page-turner that kept me up past my bedtime: every chapter poses a new challenge for the author to face, and she is breathtakingly honest about how she successfully met, or embarrassingly failed each of them. It really does read like a well-crafted novel, and the knowledge that it's a true story makes it even more fascinating.

Mary Johnson (or Sister Donata, to give her the name she chose as a religious) started out as a very intelligent but also quite naive teenager. She tells in the book how she developed into a mature adult over the next twenty years as a nun in Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity order. This order, in particular, calls for a life of absolutely unquestioning obedience and physical hardship and isolation: even newspapers, telephone calls, and mail are highly restricted. I'd last about twenty minutes, but she made it for twenty years.

Click to read more ...

Fascinated by Nuns as a Jewish Girl

As a secular Jewish girl growing up in 1960s Brooklyn, I was fascinated by the nuns who swooped into our public school class on Wednesday afternoons to gather Catholic students for two hours of weekly religious instruction. The Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary of Sparkill, New York ran St. Edmunds, a gothic church and girls prep school plunked down in a middle-class Jewish and Italian neighborhood. The austere majesty of the nun’s black habits and wimples convinced me they were teaching my classmates esoteric things and I felt envious.

With her powerful and compulsively readable new book about her 20 years with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, Mary Johnson has satisfied my own unquenchable thirst to lift the veil and see how nuns really live. Although I was always frankly a bit suspicious of Mother Teresa and annoyed at her position on abortion, I was shocked at the life she created for her nuns. The order’s near-medieval austerities included self-flagellation, severe prohibitions against any human touch, rigidly controlled daily schedules, eating what the poor ate, and physically hard labor.

Click to read more ...

What would I have done if I'd been Mary?

I should start by saying I am the publisher of 'An Unquenchable Thirst' in Australia, so I am biased. However, I am its publisher because it struck a chord with me. Mary Johnson writes as if she is talking to close friends and you quickly come to feel as if you know her. Then she opens up her heart and takes you into the world as it was for her when she was a nun. She delves into the good and the bad in equal measure; there are no rose coloured glasses, nor is there ever a feeling of resentment or animosity. Mary went on an astonishing journey during her years as a Missionary of Charity, and she invites us, as readers, to go with her, walking up and down a most unusual and unpredictable path. All the way along I would ask myself, what would I have done if I’d been her? Mary shows us her driving passion for life and her need to make the most of every situation, even when she is wondering: is she doing the right thing, is this really the life for her? A strong story about an unusual life that will make readers question aspects of their own – this is what resonated for me.

From Bernadette Foley in Sydney, Australia

Update on Friday, May 27, 2011 by Mary Johnson

Bernadette, This is exaclty what I'd oped would happen--that by telling my story readers would find new ways to ask questions of their own stories.  Working with you on the Australian publication of An Unquenchable Thirst has been a delight!