Featured Reader Response

We are all just humans in search of something greater

Mary Johnson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:21:29 +0000

I listened to An Unquenchable Thirst as an audio book in my car. Living way up north in New Hampshire gave me ample time to listen while driving all over the state. In fact, I found myself looking for excuses to just get in my car and drive to the oddest places so that I could continue the story. Long after finishing Mary's book, I thought about it. I felt a desire to talk about it to other friends and found her story fascinating on many levels.

First, Mary's story is honest, perhaps even when it may have been uncomfortable to do so. Second, we all search for love, meaning, and whether we believe in God in life. Her exploration within the Catholic faith as a nun often confirmed my own thoughts, and sometimes shed new insights into a world that is largely hidden from the rest of us. The life of a nun can be soulful, empty, loving, and cruel at times.

The story leaves me with the thought that we are all just humans in search of something greater. But, we are all creatures of this earth with instinctual and innate desires to experience the love and touch of another human being in a way that cannot always be fulfilled by the highest teachings in conventional religions. And, we shouldn't feel guilty about that. Even Mother Teresa struggled...

Thank you for sharing, Mary.

Heather McLean is the founder of Creative Edge Dance Studio in Bethlehem, NH and taught dance for over 20 years. She sold the studio to pursue her master's degree in nutrition and currently works with her husband, Jeffrey Greenfield DO, in Manchester as a nutritional counselor. She also has a community television show called Heather's Health Talk and all of the videos can be viewed on www.heathershealthtalk.com. It is a show that covers holistic health topics and nutrition not often found in mainstream media outlets.

Many forget that the church is an institution . . . a theocracy is just another power play

Mary Johnson — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:01:05 +0000

Convent politics are an old genre. I remember reading them in high school when they tended to be intermixed with the issues of WWII, all the passion and debris of human aspiration and suffering. They made great movies, esp. all those crippled and emotionally shattered men and the angels in white who moved among them. And then, later, who can ever forget the evil nun of Louise Erdrich’s tales of the rez and their dueling sorcerers?

An Unquenchable Thirst about Mary Johnson’s struggle to survive in the religious order founded by Mother Teresa is interesting because it IS about Mother Teresa -- such a puzzle, that woman -- and because it’s against the backdrop of the modern crisis of the global Catholic church as it tries to hold its configuration in a molten world. So many forget that the church is an institution: the furnace and not the fire; the stove and not the heat; a means for managing something quite inhuman that humans seem able only to touch glancingly.

from Mary Scriver

An intimate story shared beautifully and honestly

Mary Johnson — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:30:39 +0000

I'm a big fan of memoirs and have read many of them. Mary Johnson's An Unquenchable Thirst is one of my favorites. I liked it even more than I'd expected to. In fact, I could hardly put it down. As a non-Catholic, I've always been fascinated by nuns and completely unable to understand why anyone would want to be one. After reading this book, I still don't understand why any woman would choose to be a nun.

It shocked me to learn that a girl as young as 19—Mary's age when she entered the convent as a novice—would be accepted into an order. She'd never had a boyfriend, a date, a first kiss. She hadn't received a college education even though she was clearly very intelligent. She'd never had a full-time job or lived independently. How could such a girl really know what she wanted?

from Diane Lockward

An heroic journey from sacrifice to a life of fullness and authentic love!

Mary Johnson — Tue, 28 May 2013 12:54:55 +0000

Thank you, magnificent Mary, for this splendid book!! I was also a member of the MCs for a short time and your depiction brought back so many wonderful and sad memories. I was also in the South Bronx under Sr. Priscilla and then a first year novice in Rome at Tor Fiscale when I left after a total of 1 year 9 months. I am still Catholic and it was an old friend who is a priest in his 80s (ex- Jesuit) who recommended your book to me. What a surprise and blessing!

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. My family was not religious but my father's uncle had been a prominent Congregational minister and was the reason my father left his home in St. Paul, Minnesota for Honolulu. (That and the Hawaiian weather of course.) I was always searching for the meaning of life and studied several religions in my search. At age 30, I became Catholic and joined the MCs in the South Bronx and then went to Rome for the novitiate.

Susan Erdman, then Sister Dana Malia, is the sister who is standing. This photo was taken in Rome in 1979, when Susan Erdman was a novice with the Missionaries of Charity.

from Susan Erdman

Mary takes you to the “backstage” area where the nuns live and interact.

Mary Johnson — Sat, 18 May 2013 01:14:41 +0000

Mary Johnson’s book, An Unquenchable Thirst proved to be a work of great importance for me. The author showed great passion in reporting the events in her life while a nun with the Missionaries of Charity. Especially since this was Mother Teresa’s order, Mary Johnson exhibited amazing courage in this undertaking.

I, not being of the faith, was given an insight into the life of nuns that I don’t think I could have attained elsewhere. I grew up in an Italian, Catholic neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., and nuns were always a mystique to me. As a child I’d see them in the subway stations or near the churches. I envisioned their lives to be entirely devoted to God and to good works. It’s a very noble calling.

from Roz Mansouri

Your book is important on so many levels

Mary Johnson — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:47 +0000

I've been waiting for the paperback version of your book to come out and I must say, it was worth the wait. I could not put it down.

My parents shifted us from public to private Catholic school in second grade, and I was always curious about what went on in the convent house, which sat behind a high red wooden fence, adjacent to our classrooms. I remember wondering how the nuns thought we weren't supposed to be curious, and I was often scolded for pressing my nose to the fence boards during recess, trying to catch a glimpse.

Your book gives an inside account and a very human one at that of the life of nuns. To be honest, it was somewhat as I expected, but multiplied a few times over. I would describe your experience as a mash-up of never-ending bootcamp, international-level political wrangling, intense bureaucracy and the isolation of a lock-up facility.

from Bernice L. Foster

I was deeply moved . . .

Mary Johnson — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:30:00 +0000

I sometimes refer to myself as a “recovering evangelist.”

As a young woman, I spent a lot of time attempting to “save” many people, friends and family as well as strangers.

My epiphany came when, as an undergraduate, I began studying other religions, as well as meeting people who practiced them. I suppose, if I were to classify myself, I would say I most resemble a Zen Buddhist. But I won’t pretend that I practice any religion now. I have what I refer to as my “personal relationship” with some higher power; The Guy Upstairs, Mother Earth, or The Universe. (My mother does not much appreciate my lack of directed faith.) So be it.

It is with this sideways view of religion that I approached Mary Johnson’s incredible book, An Unquenchable Thirst.

from Lisa Lutwyche

You describe the good anywhere you find it and you don't lose your sense of humor

Mary Johnson — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:30:16 +0000

Man through mythology created God in his image. The deity that resulted is every bit as imperfect as man, as imperfect as the church you encountered in your book. At times wonderfully human and loving, at others as political and mean-spirited as any other human organization.

Your wonderfully detailed writing reveals that you held onto the key part of your humility, being grounded, as you did your best to love God. You describe speaking up when it was painful and inconvenient. Putting others first as you were directed, losing yourself in the process. You encouraged others while you tried to whip yourself into shape, a counterintuitive process on any road to a full and happy life.

Throughout your tale, you describe the good anywhere you find it and you don't lose your sense of humor.

from Herb Hartnett

A raw, frank and revealing masterpiece.

Mary Johnson — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:00:42 +0000

I haven't read a biography that was so open and so honest in a long time.

In fact, as I read your wonderful book I was reminded of something that someone said to the great Joni Mitchell when she recorded her iconic album "Blue" - they said, "Oh my God, Joni, it is so honest and so raw, I hope you left behind something for yourself."

I grew up Catholic, worked for the Church for many years - seeing the flaws and the joys. Even though have always loved Mother Theresa (I was there too in Philadelphia at the World Congress and mesmerized by her speech) your book did not make me love her any less - it made her more human and flawed like the rest of us!

from Gary Mallon

An extremely honest book bravely written

Mary Johnson — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:00:56 +0000

Nuns have always been a mystery to me, having grown up in a Lutheran home. I saw them only on television in the show, "The Flying Nun," and in the movie, "Lilies of the Field," and have been curious about their lifestyle ever since.

An Unquenchable Thirst is an extremely honest book bravely written about life in the Missionaries of Charity convent during the leadership of Mother Teresa. The glory and the unendurable come to life in clear, clean writing that keeps you reading to find out what could possibly happen next in Mary's life.

from Jan La Roche