Memoirs of a Nun

An Enncrave compilation

Excerpt from her book, An Unquenchable Thirst – A Memoir

22

 NIGHTS FALL 1990

CASILINA, ROME

Johnson, Mary. An Unquenchable Thirst (p. 339). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

One particular autumn night I was up late, finishing letters to send with sisters leaving for Ethiopia. Sisters in the missions had it hard, and letters eased their loneliness. At the dormitory door, I slipped my plastic slippers off and carried them in my hand, careful not to disturb my sleeping sisters. A sliver of light shone through a single shutter near my bed, probably left open by Niobe. When we’d changed beds at the beginning of the month—as we did every month, rotating spots on the clothes shelves and bookshelves and plate shelves as well, to avoid becoming attached to any particular space—Niobe had begged me to assign her a bed near mine. She hadn’t asked any favors for a while, hadn’t cornered me in the office or bathroom since her self-exile to the garden. When she’d pleaded, “Pleeeease,” just like a kid, I decided it couldn’t hurt. Besides, having her sleep near me would be a safe way to be close.

The light from the shutter guided me through the long, narrow aisles between the beds. At my bed, I removed the crucifix from my side, kissed it, and placed it on top of the blanket. Jesus’ bronze body glinted in the moonlight. I unpinned my sari, folded it, and placed it under the pillow as I simultaneously pulled out my nightdress, a smooth motion honed by years of repetition. Kneeling by the bed, I kissed the floor, then stretched my arms in the form of a cross. Fatigued, I rushed the five Our Fathers, and five Hail Marys that had been my bedtime prayer for the last fourteen years, trusting Jesus wouldn’t mind. After a concluding Glory Be, I kissed the floor again.

Still kneeling, I clasped my crucifix and bent to kiss the wounds of my Crucified Spouse, renewing my vow of poverty as I kissed His right hand, chastity on the left, obedience on the right foot, service on the left, begging grace to persevere as I kissed His side. I slid my nightdress over my head while wiggling out of habit, bodice, and chemise in the intricate dance at which I had eventually, after years of entanglement in sleeves and straps, become quite deft. As my day clothes fell to the floor on which I still knelt, I pushed my arms through the sleeves of my nightdress, fastened the snaps in the front, and rose. I folded my habit and undergarments, then lay them on top of my sari, under the pillow. Finally I reached to close the shutter. In pitch darkness I folded the blanket back, crawled between the sheets, and set my glasses under the bed.

I closed my eyes and turned my head slowly, then rolled my shoulders to release the ache of hours bent over paperwork. The steady snores of a sister at the far end of the dormitory alternated with the occasional groans of another. I was trying to recall the morning’s Gospel passage when I felt something warm—a hand, on my left arm. I jerked my head. No one stood beside my bed. God, what’s happening to me? The hand moved slowly up my arm, toward my shoulder. I shook my arm, but the hand did not stop. First one inch, then another, the hand slid up my arm. I twisted my head in the darkness but still saw no one. No, I’m not crazy. I really feel a hand on my arm. When it reached my shoulder, the hand rested there. Its size, its weight, its musky smell—Niobe, in the bed next to mine. My body seized. I didn’t want her touching me again—and in the dormitory someone might see us.

I reached to dislodge her hand, but as I shifted, her hand vanished. Hours passed before thoughts of that creeping hand finally gave way to restless sleep. Niobe didn’t come to see me the next day, which was fine with me. I didn’t want to think about that hand. There were plenty of other things to worry about—tertians to talk with, classes to teach. That night I was again last to the dormitory, and so tired I didn’t even think of the hand. I was nearly asleep when I felt the hand gently massage my shoulder. This time it didn’t feel creepy. After a minute or two it felt good. That firm hand kneaded fear and resistance out, and I relaxed into a deep sleep. Again she didn’t come to see me that day. I was so relieved not to deal with Niobe during the day—not to have to talk her into distance, not to fear what she might do behind closed doors—that I started to look forward to the nights, the relative safety of the shoulder massage amid the snores of the dark dormitory.

The nightly massage felt caring and didn’t steal time that belonged to others. I’d missed the part of Niobe’s attention that was kind. Yet I worried. I dreamed of the two of us standing before Mother and Jesus. Jesus accused us with impassioned words: You hypocrites, wearing the white robes of chastity by day, partaking of fleshly pleasures by night. We damn you to eternal fire. Mother pointed toward the steaming pit. This was really unusual. I never dreamed of hell, never thought much of hell. I hardly believed in hell. I worried that someone in the next bed over, or across the aisle, would see us or hear us. This sister would report us, and before going to hell, I would be sent to Siberia and Niobe to Freetown or Papua New Guinea. When Niobe stretched over one night and began to unbutton my nightdress, I pushed her hand away.

Shoulder rub, yes; groping, no. Her hand returned. I wrapped my fingers around her wrist and pulled up hard but could not dislodge her. She resisted so firmly, so surely, that I couldn’t even feel the resistance, only a stubborn weight planted on my chest. A whisper was dangerous, but I breathed out a solid “No” anyway. For a moment neither of us moved. Then the fingers slipped under my nightdress and marched across my torso. When the fingers reached my breast, I was so absolutely still that my breath stopped. As the hand cupped my soft flesh, resistance melted, and we seemed to float above every snoring sister in the dormitory.

After the Chapter, Sister Martin de Porres took Sister Elsitta’s place as superior of Casilina. I felt confident with this short, plump, intelligent sister from north India, with a cross tattoo on her forehead like Sister Sajani’s. Sister Martin and Sister Fatima had been the first MCs to study at Regina Mundi, when I wasn’t even in junior high. Each Thursday I continued to sit opposite Father Tom for confession, trying to take responsibility for my sins. I avoided his eyes; I didn’t deserve the compassion I found there. I was particularly ashamed of my repeated struggles with Niobe. What we were doing was obviously wrong. I should have been able to put an end to it, but Thursday after Thursday, I confessed the same sins.

One Thursday I looked at my hands, then at the ceiling, then into Father Tom’s eyes, then quickly to the floor. “I know what I’m doing with this sister is wrong,” I said, “but sometimes it feels so good. Even God seems closer, and I start to feel that He really loves me again. I can’t understand. I want to be faithful to my vows, and I want to be with her all the time, and I don’t want to neglect the other sisters, and I end up all confused.” “Sister,” he said, leaning close, “life can get very complicated. God knows your goodwill, your desires. The experience of human love can be very healing.”

“Sometimes I feel that I’m being healed, freed, and at other times I feel like I’m in a trap or a cage and I can’t get out.” “What is that cage made of?” His eyes were concerned, inviting. “Sometimes the cage is my vows, because I want so much to be with her and I feel God so present when I’m with her, but my vows say I shouldn’t. At other times my desires for her are my cage, because I want to be faithful to my vows but don’t seem able. Sometimes she seems like the cage, because she doesn’t listen to me.

Sometimes my confusion is the cage, because I have all these different desires at war in me and I can’t figure out what God wants.” “Honest questions can be more important than answers. Just keep asking the questions, and continue to be honest with yourself. I know it’s difficult to be in a place of uncertainty, but keep searching, without getting too uptight. You’ll find your own way. Listen to God in your heart.”

Before I left that day, Father Tom added, “If you need me anytime, during the week, whenever, just call me. We can talk. If I’m free, I’ll come down. You don’t have to go through this alone.” Such a generous offer. I knew I wouldn’t phone—phoning required asking permission, which would raise questions. If a priest arrived at the gate unexpectedly, asking for me, there would be even more suspicion. But the thought that he was willing comforted me.

Niobe followed me into the dormitory one day. “That was a great class,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “Really great.” I put my Bible on the desk, relieved that she wanted to talk about class, and asked, “What did you get out of it?” She grabbed my arm and pulled me close. She pushed back my sari and reached one hand inside my habit, clutching for my breast. I tried to push myself away, but her grip held me fast. This was the first time she’d tried anything during the day since she’d banished herself to the garden. “You can’t do this,” I said. “I love you. I want you.” She whispered, “I need you,” and began untying my bodice. “Niobe, stop.” “No. I need you.” I kicked her shin, and she loosened her grip, though she didn’t let me go. Her face was blank. “You can’t do this to me,” she said, rubbing her shin with one hand.

“You can’t do this to me,” I said, tying my bodice. “Don’t you know I love you?” “I love you, too, but not like this.” I tried to make my voice firm, authoritative. I tried to imagine I was Sister Marie Therese, delivering an ultimatum. “You don’t know what real love is. You’ve never felt it, skin against skin, one body inside another.” She stopped rubbing her shin and looked at me, her brown eyes searching me. “You don’t know that feeling.”

“I’ve chosen not to know it. I’ve given it up. I belong to God.” She shook her head. “You never had a chance. You don’t know what you’ve given up. How can you give a gift without knowing what it is?” “Niobe—” She held my shoulders in her hands and shook me a little. “You need to experience real love,” she said. “I will show you. Just give me one night, and then I won’t ask anymore.” “You don’t ask now. You just take.”

Her eyes registered hurt, like that night when she’d complained that I’d told her she wasn’t trying. She turned her face away. I cradled her chin in one hand and guided her gaze back to me. “No more pushing me against the wall?” I asked. “No following me into the office?” “No. I promise,” she said. “Let me give you just one night, then I will stop. Let me show you how much I love you, and let yourself feel it.”

It was tempting, but what she was suggesting was so clearly sinful that I shouldn’t even consider it. “Niobe, I don’t need to feel it.” “You don’t know what you need.” “Niobe, leave me alone.” “I love you. You don’t know how much I love you.” Picking up my Bible again, I walked in front of her and out the door, to the chapel, heart thumping in my chest, skin tingling with forbidden thoughts.

As the days passed and I busied myself with supervising the tertians and explicating the Gospel of John, curiosity over Niobe’s proposal returned. I found myself remembering Bernini’s marvelous statue of Teresa of Avila in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria—the art history book I’d read at school said the statue was erotic, that the artist had depicted Teresa in orgasm. She looked as though she’d been carried outside herself, into something greater, into God. How could that be wrong?

A willful violation of my vows was obviously wrong. Even thinking these thoughts was sinful, and I was tired of it all. Niobe promised to leave me alone if I gave her one night. Then we could be normal, peaceful. She would stop paying attention to me, and I could stop my sinful curiosity. It was tempting. I thought about it all the time. The marble under my bare feet was cold that night, the shutters, save the one near my bed, drawn. Only the deep breathing of the sisters and the creak of springs as someone tossed on her mattress disturbed the dormitory’s quiet. I pulled the final shutter gently closed and leaned over her bed. In the darkness I could not see her form, but I knew where her shoulder was, and I touched it gently. “Tonight,” I whispered in her ear. “I want it tonight.” She rolled over and grunted. “Not tonight. I’m tired.”

All this time she’s been after me to do this, and now she’s tired? “Now or never. I’m ready.” She rolled over. She grunted. “Tomorrow.” I did not move. She turned in bed and whispered, “Do you really want it?” I paused, but I did not hesitate. The pause was for emphasis. “Yes.” “Go upstairs—the empty room, in the middle. I will come.” I nodded, even as she pulled the sheet over her head. At the door I turned back to look. No one seemed to be paying any attention. I met no one on the stairs. I prayed for a deep sleep for my sisters. God, I dare to ask Your assistance, even tonight. At the top of the stairs I paused in the shadow cast by a nearly full moon against a half-open shutter. A sister snored in the dormitory on the right. I turned left. The beds were empty in the three small, unused rooms that lined the corridor between the top of the stairs and the bathroom. I entered the middle room and pulled the door silently behind me, leaving it narrowly cracked.

What am I about to do? Better not to think about it. I have decided, and I will do it, and tomorrow I will confess. I will not think. I will look out the window and wait. Beyond the fence, I saw the street, trees, buildings with lights on. The breeze rustled my nightdress. Would she lift it when she came? Footsteps approached, then passed the door and continued on. Dear God, please don’t let anyone come looking for me. I held my breath and my chest tightened until I heard the toilet flush. The footsteps passed the door again, and I sat on a bed. Should I be standing or sitting when she comes? Or lying on the bed? Then the door opened, and she was there. I never heard her coming. “Are you sure?” she whispered, her breath warm against my cheek. “Yes.”

She turned the doorknob carefully and closed the door. With both hands, she grabbed one end of a bed and nodded me toward the other. We lifted the bed quietly and placed it against the door, blocking the entrance. Niobe unfolded herself, upright, still.

“You are so beautiful,” she said. She held out her arms, and I entered. She smelled like woodsmoke and soap, and I felt safe. She invited me onto a bed in the corner, and I sat, looking into her eyes. She lifted my legs onto the bed, her arms strong yet gentle. At first she sat beside me, caressing my face with her fingers, kissing my eyelids. Then she nudged me onto my back, and I pulled her down with me. She stretched her body on top of mine, face to face, limb to limb. Her weight comforted. She pulled back my headpiece and ran her fingers across the nubs of hair, kissing the top of my head. She kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my lips, and all the while her weight pressed down, her body mirroring my own. Her lips, sun-rough, traced paths down my arms. “I love you,” she whispered. “I want you. I need you.”

The next morning I made my confession behind the screen. I could hear Father Tom breathing on the other side. “I did something really wrong,” I said. “I mean, I had the most marvelous experience last night—the Church says it is a sin—but I never imagined anything so wonderful.” He pressed his head closer to the screen. My heart beat very fast. “You know, with that sister I’ve felt close to. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but it felt like a real experience of God’s love. I don’t know if you understand—”

“Yes, Sister, I understand.” His gentle voice did not judge me. “Like I said, I know it was wrong. I won’t do it again—that was part of the reason I did it. She said she would stop if I let her have one night. I suppose I must have offended God, and I’m sorry for that, but I don’t know how God could honestly be offended by something so wonderful. Didn’t God make us like this, after all? Except of course I promised Him I wouldn’t do it, and now—” I took a deep breath, trying to draw shame out of my heart, but exuberance bubbled up instead. “I never knew my body was capable of that. But God knew, and God called me here, and I won’t do it again.” I clutched the ledge of the confessional.

“Sister, I hardly know what to say.” “Just give me a penance, Father.” “A penance? A penance for something like this?” He almost sounded happy for me. But I’d just committed a mortal sin. He must have been looking for a penance big enough. “Sister, I want you to meditate on the first chapter of Genesis, the part where it says that God made man and woman in his own image and likeness. Will you do that?” “Yes, Father.” “Good.” “Father, the absolution?” “You want absolution?” “Yes, Father, I’m really sorry.” “I absolve you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” “Amen.” I was so glad that was over.

Niobe and I could go back to normal. I wouldn’t have to think about those things anymore. That afternoon Niobe followed me into the dormitory to renew her general permissions. As she closed the door with one hand, she grabbed me with the other and pushed me against the door. Her upper body pressed against me while her hand reached under my sari. She was not gentle.

“Niobe, don’t. I gave you what you wanted. Now you’ve promised to leave me alone.” “Your body is so beautiful.” “Niobe, now I’ve experienced my body, and I want to give it back to Jesus.” She flattened me more firmly against the door. “Niobe—stop. You promised.” “How can you stop now?” She pulled down my underpants. I kicked her shin, but she continued. “You are so beautiful.” The tingling between my legs felt so good. It shouldn’t feel good. This was sinful. “You are so beautiful.” “You’re greedy, and we both have vows of chastity.”

“I want to make you feel good.” Footsteps in the hall. Niobe immediately straightened, dropped my sari, and stepped back slightly, leaving her hands on the door at my shoulders, like a cage. The footsteps continued toward the bathroom. She pressed herself against me again. She pressed herself against me in the dormitory that day, she pulled me into the office when Sister Martin wasn’t there, she followed me into go-downs and bathrooms. I pushed back. I kicked. I stepped on her feet. She pushed harder and longer. I confessed my inability to stop, my confusion, my intolerance, my desire. I moved my bed away from hers. I told her never to touch me again. She told me she knew what was best for me and what I really wanted. I hated it. I loved it. I wanted it to be over.

27

 SEXAHOLIC SUMMER 1993 TO FALL 1994

MOSCOW, RUSSIA, AND CASILINA, ROME

When Sister Agnel told me that I had to spend another year with the tertians, I thought again of running away, but I didn’t have the energy for it. Instead, I asked for a retreat. I needed to get right with God. I was looking forward to the silence, but I hadn’t expected to end up with twenty sisters from the Russian region in a dingy summer vacation house outside Moscow. The dacha, formerly used by higher-ups in the Communist Party, had been loaned to the Missionaries of Charity for two weeks, on condition that we kept ourselves discreetly inside the house.

As I made my way to the dorm, the buckling linoleum and damp walls seemed haunted by the ghosts of previous unsavory inhabitants. Dejected at the prospect of eight days of confinement in that seedy house, on the verge of an assignment I feared, I sinned that night. Over the months I’d tried my best to avoid touching myself, but that night the desire for those intensely good feelings bested me.

Perhaps I also realized that if this retreat accomplished all I hoped, masturbation would be high on the list of things I would swear off forever. Confessing masturbation wasn’t a good way to get started with a new priest, but I couldn’t go to Communion with a mortal sin on my soul. The next day, during that first confession of the retreat, a screen separating us, I didn’t say much, and neither did Father Gary. I’d known this tall Canadian priest by sight since I’d been a postulant and he’d been a seminarian, coming with Joseph, then a brother, to help out in San Gregorio. I liked Joe, but Gary seemed standoffish, a little arrogant. When Father Joseph had started the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, Father Gary had been the first to sign up. I’d barely seen him over the ensuing decade, but I’d recently heard that Father Gary had a gay brother. This gave me some faint hope that Father Gary might have insight into my problems.

The day after my masturbation confession I entered the dark parlor again, pulled out a chair, and told Father Gary face-to-face that I’d been struggling with sexual desires for six years. I confessed a very complicated relationship with a sister who eventually became my tertian, a short-lived relationship with another sister, feelings of attraction for yet others, and love for a priest, my hand on his shoulder, his hands on my head, a kiss. I told him that though I hadn’t felt sexually attracted to a depressed tertian, I had embraced her when she asked me to, and that one day she had crawled up on me while I was in bed. I told Father Gary that over the years I’d repeatedly thought—even during times of prayer—about the people to whom I felt attracted. I told him that during the six years since my first relationship, I often longed to express my love physically, that I had sometimes longed for it so much that I’d felt a stabbing pain in my heart or a weird sort of yearning ache in my bones and muscles. I told him I wanted to be free of sexual desire, that I was ashamed of what I had done, and sorry.

When I finished my confession, I looked down at my hands. I didn’t suppose Father Gary heard confessions like this every day, especially not from a nun entrusted with as much responsibility as I’d been given. I’d never heard any sister admit to my sort of troubles. After a few moments, Father Gary said, “Sister, you’re a sex addict.”

His words startled me. I swallowed hard. A sex addict? “Only one thing will help you,” Father Gary continued. “You need to do the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, but apply them to sex instead of alcohol.” Father Gary reached for a pencil and paper. My mind began to race. Bradshaw’s books had said that people could be addicted to almost anything, but I’d figured my desires were part of a delayed sexual awakening. Though I was thirty-five, I thought of myself as a sexual adolescent, sure that with time I could master my urges and stop breaking my vows. But what did I know? Father Gary had experience with hundreds of souls and was at least a decade older than I.

Father Gary put down the pencil and handed me his list. “When you’ve finished these three,” he said, “I’ll give you the next steps.” He told me to pray a rosary in reparation for my sins, and he kept his hands close to his chest when he gave me absolution, tracing the sign of the cross with small, stilted gestures.

I took the list to the chapel.

 1. Admit that you are powerless over lust—that your life has become unmanageable. This was easy. Lust obviously had the upper hand.

 2. Believe that God can restore you to sanity. I knew not only that God could restore me to sanity but also that God wanted to help me—after all, He’d been the one who’d called me to chastity in the first place.

 3. Turn your will and your life over to the care of God. I apologized to God and told Him that I was ready to give up everyone and everything that stood between us. Once again, I offered Him my will and my life, and begged Him to have His way with me.

 The next morning I returned to the parlor and asked Father Gary for the next steps. He raised an eyebrow. “Father,” I said, “I’m ready to move on. I’ve got to get this thing under control.” I handed him the paper, and he added the next two steps to the list:

4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.

5. Admit to God, to yourself, and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs.

“Step five isn’t just a regular confession,” he said, handing the paper back to me. “You’ve got to go deeper than just listing your deeds. You need to locate the specific defects of character from which your deeds spring. Be very precise about your lack of moral integrity, and don’t leave anything out.”

This didn’t seem too hard, either. In my confessions I’d always tried to get at the root causes of my sinfulness. Over years of confession I’d come to realize that, as with most people, I’d emerged from childhood with a bruised self-image and a longing for love that continued to haunt me. I’d been conceived just a month after my parents’ marriage, and by the time I was seven, there were five of us. While other kids my age played hide-and-seek, I scrubbed floors, folded clothes, and boiled macaroni. Still, my mom always seemed overwhelmed. At school my good grades made me popular with the teachers but not with other kids, who taunted me. My classmates never let me forget that I was fat, freckled, four-eyed, and had the shortest hair in class (as did all my sisters—my mom insisted that neither she nor her daughters had time to waste washing and brushing long hair). As I tried to ferret out the causes of my sinfulness, I realized that I’d grown up thinking of myself as unlovable and of my worth as defined by what I could do to help others. I also nurtured more than a little resentment.

For years—both before joining the convent and after I’d entered—my prayer had been, “Let me know that I am loved.” Throughout his talks in the chapel, Father Gary spoke of God’s love as thirst. God had created human beings because He thirsted to love and to be loved by us. On the cross Jesus’ cry of thirst expressed His desire for human love. In recent years God had responded to my painful thirst to experience His love, but He hadn’t sent me the mystical interior feelings I’d expected. Instead He’d sent people to love me, and I’d grasped at that love with both hands. I’d wanted it too much and had gone too far.

Back in the chapel, I filled the pages of my notebook with my moral inventory, cataloguing the weaknesses and unholy desires that led me to sin. After two days of work, I showed Father Gary my list. He flipped page after page, then said I hadn’t thought about it enough. He said I needed to spend more time in prayer and be really honest. How much more honest could I be? What did he think I was hiding? He told me that when I returned to Rome he would send me a Sexaholics Anonymous book. After I’d read the book, I should finish my inventory and confess my sins to a priest, which would be step five.

I had hoped to get step five out of the way that day, to confess my sins to Father Gary. I needed to get my addiction under control before returning to Rome, where Tom and a new group of tertians awaited me. I spent the next few days trying to be more thorough, but didn’t find much to add to my inventory.

The last day of the retreat, Father Gary sent for me. When I entered the parlor, he was sipping his farewell breakfast coffee, bag by his side. He stopped sipping long enough to tell me, “I want to be fully honest with you. You need to know that you are a very seductive person, and that you must change that.”

 Seductive? That word hadn’t yet made it onto my moral inventory.

He put the cup down, licked his lips, and stood. “That’s all I have to say. I just couldn’t leave without telling you.” He half smiled and grabbed his bag. He had a plane to catch. All through that morning and into lunch, the other sisters laughed and told stories, enjoying the release from our eight days of silence. I laughed, too—nervously—but I couldn’t listen to their stories. All I could hear was that one word echoing in my brain: seductive, seductive, seductive. I’d never thought of myself as a provocative temptress. I certainly hadn’t been trying to seduce Father Gary. I knew that I had to watch myself with people to whom I felt attracted, but Father Gary didn’t fall into that category at all.

At lunch, the regional superior announced that Father Gary had suggested further rest for me. She’d gotten permission from Sister Agnel to send me to the sisters in St. Petersburg for a few days. That was incredibly kind. If Father Gary had understood my need for a break, he was probably right about my being seductive, too.

The St. Petersburg sisters took me to the Hermitage Museum and to the Summer Palace of the tsars, but even the masterpieces and the ferryboat rides couldn’t drive the word from the back of my mind: seductive, seductive, seductive. When I returned to Rome, I was very careful to keep my distance from the sisters, and I backed away from Tom again. No matter how much rigorous honesty I tried to apply to my analysis, I still couldn’t figure out how I was being seductive, so I didn’t know which specific behaviors to avoid. This, I thought, made me a very dangerous person indeed.

Back in Casilina, I continued to feel drawn to Tom, and saw Father Bob when he came on Wednesdays. When I confessed that I thought I was in love with a priest, Father Bob told me, “When we were in seminary, they told us that if we would fall in love was never a question; the only question was when.”

He told me, “Falling in love isn’t sinful—it’s human.” Then he added, “As people who have vowed chastity, what is important is that we never give voice to our love. We may feel it, but we must never say it or show it in any way.” “It’s too late for that,” I told him. “That complicates things,” he said.

I told him how much this priest had helped me, and how we both wanted to be faithful to our vocations. Father Bob didn’t advise me to cut this priest off completely, but he did recommend avoiding time alone with him behind closed doors.

That Thursday I asked Tom if he would mind moving our weekly talk to the garden. As we strolled between the eucalyptus trees, we talked, but I was too ashamed to tell him I’d discovered I was a sex addict. The next Wednesday after confession, Father Bob nodded at a package wrapped in brown paper, lying on the parlor table. “Father Gary sent this and asked me to give it to you,” he said. “He told me not to give it to Sister Dorothy.”

I could see that Father Bob wasn’t comfortable going behind my superior’s back. To allay his fears, I opened the package in front of him. The book had a plain glossy white cover, without any words or pictures. The interior title page read Sexaholics Anonymous.

“Yeah, I guess Sister Dorothy doesn’t need to see this,” he said. I read the Sexaholics book when I thought no one was looking. The book told of people who’d had dozens, sometimes hundreds of partners. Though my sexual experiences were far more limited, I didn’t have much trouble admitting to myself that I was a sexaholic. I thought about sex—sometimes several times a day. I’d never seen porn, but the juicier parts of the Bible sometimes aroused me. Most significantly, I’d allowed my desire for sex to so overtake me that I’d broken my vows.

While I could accept sexaholic, coming to terms with seductive proved more difficult. The word kept rattling around in my brain, shaming me. I couldn’t look Father Bob in the eye the day I told him Father Gary had called me seductive. Father Bob sat silent for a moment, then said he’d never thought of me that way.

“Seductive is a word I’ve heard Father Gary use to describe someone who seeks attention, sexual or not,” Father Bob explained. “I don’t know what he meant with you, and I don’t know what he felt in your presence.”

That last phrase stuck in my head: what he felt in your presence. Was it possible that Father Gary felt attracted to me, and that he’d chosen to blame that attraction on my seductiveness?

In July, Mother collapsed of exhaustion in Bombay. In August, malaria overtook her in Delhi. In September, heart and lung trouble sent her to the hospital in Calcutta. As the news grew worse and worse, everyone grew anxious. We increased our prayers and doubled our penance. I tried my best to behave as Mother expected of me.

We received news that Father Van Exem, who had been Mother’s spiritual director when she received the inspiration to begin the Missionaries of Charity, was also ill. He wrote a letter to Mother, telling her that he had asked God to take his life and to spare hers. When I heard this, I was struck by what sounded to me like romantic devotion. Father Van Exem obviously shared a deep spiritual bond with Mother, but I was sure they had never been anything but chaste. Why couldn’t I manage that?

Father Van Exem died the day after he’d offered his life. Mother recovered. When I finally told Tom that Father Gary had recommended Sexaholics Anonymous to me, he was surprised at first. “I don’t think you’re an addict,” he said, “but the twelve steps use sound spiritual principles—they’re good for anyone who’s trying to grow.” He offered to make the twelve steps the subject of his weekly talks to the tertians, and to smuggle me books on the steps.

Tom said there was power in sharing one’s struggles—a power I’d certainly experienced. He said the twelve steps worked best in groups, so I divided my tertians into four groups of six sisters each—“Sinners Anonymous.” I wanted the sisters to feel free to speak without having to worry about their mistress and reports, so I didn’t join any of the groups. Instead, Tom and I formed our own little sinners group. Though we shared nothing more than our thoughts, the attraction between us grew so strong that sometimes I had to sit on my hands to keep from reaching for him. I noticed that Tom’s palms sometimes glistened with perspiration.

At first the tertians were enthusiastic about learning the steps, a new spiritual tool on the road to holiness. Before long, though, some sisters grew nervous. Candidly admitting inclinations to self-importance, jealousy, or chronic laziness required more honesty than most MCs were accustomed to. Still, many sisters rose to the challenge, and I watched as humble vulnerability seemed to yield better results than previous years of striving for spiritual perfection.

Though I still didn’t understand exactly how seductive applied to me, I asked Father Bob one Wednesday if he would hear a long confession. It was time to admit to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs, time to abandon the thrill of attraction and of breaking the Rules. I hoped my step five confession and my decision to forever reject any sexual expression of love would turn me more surely toward God, the only source of peace. I thought often of St. Augustine’s words: You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.

Toward the end of my confession I admitted that I still wasn’t aware of having seduced or manipulated others, but that I was sorry for whatever sins I had unknowingly committed.

After Father Bob absolved me, I expected to feel clean, unburdened, free. Instead, I left the parlor feeling that things were still unfinished. Though I couldn’t have explained why, I was keenly aware that the last word on my life as a human being with a body and desires hadn’t yet been spoken.

As I knelt in chapel, reciting my penance, the words of St. Paul to the Romans returned to me: God makes all things—even sin, I thought—work together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His plan.

Loving others wasn’t always easy for me, and Sister Dorothy was one of my greatest challenges. I would have liked to work with her collaboratively, as I had with Sister Joseph Michael, but Sister Dorothy didn’t treat any sister as an equal. When we received news of the destruction of several churches during ethnic strife in Kosovo, Sister Dorothy told me, “I can understand that they kill the people, but why do they have to destroy such beautiful churches?” I then truly understood there was little chance of Sister Dorothy and I ever seeing eye to eye on anything.

That winter, Sister Dorothy felt particularly cold. The novices lived in the prefabricated building we’d previously used for refugees, and Sister decided to move in with them—they had central heating. I couldn’t resist taking advantage of the fact that this left Mother’s room—and the telephone—free at nights.

The first night I phoned Tom he was surprised. The second night he was eager. The third night I was late and he was anxious. We couldn’t speak for long—like most priests, Tom had a private phone in his own room, but I never knew when someone might walk in on me, or who might be standing outside the door, trying to overhear.

Hearing Tom say “I love you” before I went to bed each night was like retiring  to paradise. I felt a little guilty, but not guilty enough to stop.

Sister Agnel called me into her office one day in April. “Sister Dorothy’s term will expire next month,” she said. “I need to recommend a new superior for Casilina. The European novices need to learn to obey an Indian. I’m thinking of Sister Constancia. What do you think?”

I knew Sister Agnel wasn’t really asking my opinion. She was preparing me for the fact that I wasn’t going to be appointed superior of Casilina. Since I was assistant superior and had evident leadership abilities, many sisters considered me the obvious choice. While it was true that obeying an Indian sister would give the novices practice living under someone with different cultural sensibilities, Sister Constancia was already senior novice mistress, so appointing her as superior of Casilina—in charge of both novices and tertians—wouldn’t change much about how novices learned to obey. Sister Agnel was being kind, but I already knew I’d never be appointed superior of Casilina. At least some of the councilors were aware of my troubles with Niobe, and I’d heard that Sister Lita had been gossiping about me all over Calcutta. I didn’t expect to be appointed superior of anything, much less of a formation house with novices and tertians.

“Sister Constancia is a good sister,” I said. Sister Agnel nodded. “There’s something else,” she said. “The councilors want you taken off formation duty.” “Fine,” I said with relief. “You know I want to go back to regular work.” “Not like this,” Sister Agnel said. “What do you mean?”

“Mother is very upset,” Sister Agnel said. “Mother wanted to know—again—if the stories about you are true. Sister Lita has told everyone in Calcutta about how you …” “Fornicated,” I said. “Yes, ‘fornicated’ with Sister Nolly. The councilors are putting a lot of pressure on her to get you out of formation work.” “Sister,” I said, “I’d love to go to a mission house.”

“Listen,” she said. “I have something to tell you. I’ve had a sister watching you.” “What?” “One of the tertians in your group. I knew she would notice if anything was going on. I told her to watch you and report to me.” I was flabbergasted. I’d never imagined Sister Agnel would have spies. “You’ve had problems in the past.” Sister Agnel waited. I nodded. “But I don’t think you have them now. This sister told me that no one has ever helped her—neither priest nor sister, not even me—as much as you have helped her. She said you don’t correct the sisters in public, but that when she comes to renew her permissions, you help her understand herself and you do it with compassion. She told me that you’ve helped her change things that she’s been struggling with for forty years. She says you have no favorites and that you’ve taught the sisters to pray. The novices and novice mistresses tell me similar things—your classes help them more than anything else.”

Sister Agnel sighed. “I can’t recommend you for superior, but neither can I lose a tertian mistress like you. The Society needs you, both now and in the future. If you leave Casilina now, everyone in Calcutta will believe those stories and your reputation will never recover. We can’t let a few past mistakes and rumors spread by an angry sister deprive the Society of all you have to offer.”

Everything Sister said left me dazed, but she had a plan. “I’m going to tell Mother everything I’ve told you today. She’s already upset with me for disagreeing with the councilors, because that makes things difficult for her in Calcutta, but I think she will listen to me. If I can convince Mother, Mother will stand up to the councilors.”

“Thank you, Sister,” I said. “But I still want to go to a mission house.” “One more year,” she said. “And I think you should know that I wasn’t planning on telling you all the things that tertian told me about you, but she said she wouldn’t tell me anything unless I told you everything I heard from her. You’re doing a good job. Thank you.”

Sister Agnel laid her hands on my head in blessing, and let them linger a bit. I left the room a little dizzy. How was I going to survive another year? The weeks that followed brought many new assignments, but not for me. Sister Agnel convinced Mother that I’d learned my lesson and deserved another chance. Sister Constancia replaced Sister Dorothy as superior of Casilina, and Sister Elena replaced Sister Agnel as regional superior of Italy. One of the last things Sister Agnel did while still regional was to send me to Napoli for a week of rest before my new tertians arrived, a rest I deeply appreciated.

After the break, I approached my new group with more confidence than I had with any other. I knew I wasn’t as good a sister as Sister Agnel imagined me to be. She knew nothing about Tom and our nightly conversations, how the strength and wisdom I used to serve the sisters were derived at least as much from my relationship with him as from prayer. Still, the validation Sister gave me helped balance the browbeating I’d received from Sister Dorothy, and I was pleased to think that I had actually helped some sisters.

A general letter Mother had written that March particularly touched me: Only the thirst of Jesus, hearing it, feeling it, answering it with all your heart, will keep the Society alive after Mother leaves you. Mother emphasized over and over again the need to draw close to Jesus: You will hear, you will feel His presence. Let it become as intimate for each of you just as for Mother—this is the greater joy you could give me.

I recognized Mother’s letter as an opportunity to talk to the sisters about intimacy. My excitement grew as I prepared a mini-retreat I titled “Open Your Heart.” Of course, I spoke about intimacy with Jesus, but I often drew on my experience with human beings, relationships that had convinced me I was lovable in a way that prayer did only in passing moments. I told the sisters that every relationship required hard work, and I detailed seven steps of intimacy: fascination, trust, honesty, commitment, communion, suffering and service, and joy.

I knew how lonely some of these novices and tertians were. I told them God was eager to let them know He loved them. I told them they didn’t need to be afraid of God. When I admitted that for many years I’d struggled to truly feel that God loved me, one sister said, “I thought I was the only one who didn’t feel Jesus’ love all the time.” I watched as sisters throughout the room nodded. I told them we all had an emptiness within that longed to be filled. When I explained how resentment, guilt, and fear could block the experience of love, they asked questions that showed they understood and were ready to grow. When I spoke of the joys of intimacy as a foretaste of heaven, we ached together.

Mother was in Rome all October and part of November, invited by the Holy Father to participate in the bishops’ synod on religious life. Though more than 85 percent of religious were women, Mother was one of only a handful of females allowed to witness the Pope and bishops as they discussed consecrated religious life. As priests, bishops had made promises of celibacy and obedience to the bishop, but few of them lived in community as consecrated religious with vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Why were bishops issuing detailed directives about the lives of nuns and brothers?

Throughout the synod, Mother stayed at Dono di Maria, just a few steps from the Audience Hall where the synod met, and one afternoon I took the tertians for tea with Mother. Mother looked more rested than she had in a long time, and her eyes twinkled like those of a little girl. She told us the bishops were concerned that some congregations of sisters were straying from poverty and obedience, and she admonished us again to be holy, reminding us of her promise to give Saints to Mother Church.

Then Mother sat up particularly straight and said, “Sisters, I think we should all hurry up and die.” I’d never heard Mother say anything like that before. She continued, “We should hurry up and die because this Holy Father is canonizing everyone.” She giggled, but it didn’t seem to be just a joke to Mother. I’d realized for some time that when Mother talked about becoming a Saint, she didn’t mean merely becoming a holy person in union with God—she meant being recognized as a Saint, being canonized by the Church. Becoming a Saint was the one approved ambition for a Missionary of Charity, and in this respect Mother was an ambitious woman. She was doing a lot of good in the world, and she clearly loved Jesus, but I sometimes wondered if her desire for canonization made her more obedient to the hierarchy than a true prophet usually was. In a few days, Mother would become one of the few women to address the synod, and I found myself wishing she were more like Joan of Arc, Catherine of Siena, or Dorothy Day—the kind of saint who spoke truth to power. Mother was perhaps the only woman alive with sufficient moral and popular capital to challenge the Vatican and hope she might be heard. I doubted that Mother understood the implications for the poor and for women when she backed the Pope on birth control, the all-male priesthood, and the primacy of obedience. Standing with the Pope was a reflex for Mother. She was a woman who knew her place, and the Pope called her “my best ambassador.” If he lived long enough, Pope John Paul II would surely canonize Mother. Though I continued to love and respect her, the day Mother told us to hurry up and die was the day I ceased needing her approval.

In Tom’s presence on Thursdays, I could be completely myself. Mother had it right when she said that we were made to love and to be loved. In more than one way, loving and being loved by Tom had advantages over loving and being loved by God. For one thing, I could look into Tom’s eyes. For another, Tom didn’t exercise power the way God had done since I’d become an MC. When I’d been at home, I’d often felt a sense of partnership with God similar to what I felt with Tom, but once I’d become an MC, God—through the sisters—had exerted dominion over my every thought and action.

Occasionally on Thursdays, in the parlor—behind closed doors despite Father Bob’s admonition—I sat opposite Tom and took his hands in mine. My conscience and that corner room with its scantily curtained windows kept me from doing much more than holding his hands. Tom seemed to have an additional brake that never allowed him to reach for my hands unless I extended mine first, to touch my face unless I had first caressed his cheek. I knew his reticence wasn’t indifference but respect. Tom had seen me struggle to free myself from Niobe’s bullying, and had witnessed the vacillations of my conscience. He was also sensitive to the power difference inherent in the way our relationship had begun and continued—confessor and penitent, older man and younger woman—and he wanted to leave me completely free.

One day Tom told me, “I wish I could say that my feelings for you are entirely platonic, but I can’t.” I could see that his fondness for me troubled him sometimes—or perhaps it wasn’t our feelings but our vows that complicated things.

I worried about him, but I didn’t ask much about his struggles; I feared his conscience might push me away the way my conscience had at times pushed him.

In our nighttime conversations, safer because of the distance, we sometimes fantasized about marriage. We both loved our vocations and knew that sisters would never be allowed to marry and that permission for priests to marry wouldn’t be granted in our lifetimes, but we had our dreams. One night he told me how he longed to walk with me in the park, for everyone to see, me leaning on his arm, the two of us together. I told him I sometimes dreamed of waking up next to him in the morning. I told him I’d like to iron his shirts and rub his back and read with him in front of the fireplace after dinner.

I finished steps six and seven (Become entirely ready to have God remove all defects of character, and Humbly ask Him to remove these shortcomings) and was working on step eight (Make a list of all persons you have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all) when one Sunday morning I answered the phone in Mother’s room.

“C’é lo nella mia mano,” the voice on the phone said. “I have it in my hand. Help me! I don’t want to anymore.” The man’s words came out in little jerks. He was breathing quickly. The sisters had mentioned an obscene caller of late. I almost hung up, but the desperation in his voice tugged at me. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Giovanni,” he said. “Giovanni, God loves you.” “God doesn’t love me, suora,” he said, still breathing heavily.

“Nonsense, Giovanni. God is love.” “Suora, I don’t believe you.” Giovanni paused for a moment. “I’d like to believe you.” “That’s a first step,” I said. Giovanni’s breath slowed. I tried not to picture what he was doing. We talked for a while. Giovanni told me he lived alone, that he was thirty-five, that he’d once had a real girlfriend but she’d ditched him, that his sister didn’t like him. He told me that he liked hookers and had once done something with a little girl, something shameful. “I like to talk to you,” he said. “The others, they just hang up.” I told him, “You need to change your first line.”

I told him he could call again if he wanted to. As I set the receiver in its cradle, I realized I might have just had my first real Sexaholics Anonymous meeting. The thought that God might be making use of my sinfulness to help someone felt very good indeed.

Giovanni phoned several Sundays in a row, and as he shared his struggles, he seemed to be having fewer of them. Then one Sunday I heard shame in his voice. “Suora, I’ve slipped far,” Giovanni said. “I was good. I didn’t give myself the saw all week, then I slipped. Yesterday I went out on the street near the market and bought myself a woman for an hour.”

In that instant, Giovanni ashamed on the phone and waiting for a response from me, I realized I wasn’t a sex addict at all. Unlike Giovanni, I would never dream of approaching a stranger for sex. Unlike Niobe, I would never demand sexual services from a lover who didn’t want to give them. Unlike the people in the Sexaholics Anonymous book, I would never haul a stranger I’d just met into a broom closet for a quickie or use my family’s grocery money to buy porn.

Though curiosity and the need to feel appreciated had often motivated my lust-driven encounters with Niobe and Sister Timothy, I’d outgrown that. I longed for physical intimacy with Tom not because I was sexually obsessed but because my body sought passionate expression of genuine love. This wasn’t perverted; it was natural. “Suora?” Giovanni asked. “Suora, are you there?” I brought myself back and told Giovanni that God understood his frustrations. I told him that he shouldn’t worry too much about slipping from time to time. I pointed out that paying a woman for sex was at least better than using his strength to force sex on someone who didn’t want it. As I had in the past, I invited him to do something to help others who had problems, to volunteer at a soup kitchen or convalescent home. Giovanni thanked me for listening. I thanked him, too, though I didn’t explain why.

Relief and a sense of integrity followed on the knowledge that I was no sexaholic. I was a woman who loved, and whose body wanted to love, too.

Of course, I still had a problem. A woman who longed to bed the priest who used to be her confessor, a woman who called him every night to say she loved him—such a woman, even if she wasn’t a sexaholic, wasn’t a good nun, either. I may not have been a good nun, but I decided my worry about being a seductive sexaholic had sapped too much of my energy. As long as Tom didn’t interfere with my duties to my sisters, I would look on our love for each other as a gift from God, who was bigger than the Rules.

The next Thursday I walked into the parlor and settled myself in a seat opposite the man I loved. I looked into his eyes and told Tom that if he ever wanted to take my hands first, that would be fine with me. He smiled. “I’ve been waiting for that,” he said. “I know,” I said.

• Mary Johnson is a writer and director of A Room of Her Own Foundation. She worked and served with the Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa, for twenty years before leaving the order. She is now a writer and a public speaker and a supporter of women’s rights in the arts. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from Lamar University^[1] and her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College.^[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Johnson_(writer)#:~:text=Mary