Who Was Mother Teresa? (Mother's Day Special)

Mother Teresa was a woman who helped other people throughout her life.  Upon her death she was declared a saint and her life and deeds live up to that title. But did you know that she moved to Ireland in order to learn English? Or that she performed miracles beyond the grave? Mother Teresa is often synonymous with virtue, kindness and giving - and this episode of Dirt Nap City explores those virtues as well as the controversy behind her organization and some of her views. For mother's day, Kelly and Alex dig deep into the life of the original mother who was an example of true altruism in a world that could definitely use it!

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Dirt Nap City. I'm Kelly. I'm here with my buddy Alex. Well, we're up we're not actually together today. We're recording in separate cities, but technology allows us to do that, and we're super psyched because it's been a little while recording uh for season two. I believe this is going to be episode 17. Alex, how are you doing today? Doing great, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Just enjoying all the blue bonnets around here in Texas.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

And have you ever noticed that people, I think they automatically get a pass when they park their car to do to do blue bonnet pictures.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

The blue bonnet shoot, yeah. You see, cars if you're not from Texas, people just pull over to the side of the road, take their dogs and their guinea pigs and their kids, and they're taking all kinds of pictures with the blue bonnets. I've heard that guinea pigs and blue bonnets go well together.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

They they do actually. We had a guinea pig named Ollie, and we did do a blue bonnet photo shoot. Um, but Ollie was more interested in eating the blue bonnets than he was in actually being photographed in them. But we did get some good pictures of Ollie and the blue bonnets. Uh, and it's funny too, because as you were saying, people you'll you'll drive down the highway. I mean, I just drove to Houston and to Dallas, so uh two different roads with blue bonnets, and both times saw cars that were not pulled over with any degree of safety in mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

They just kind of like oh when you see, yeah, when you see a big bunch, you gotta just hit hit the brakes.

unknown 1:32

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

And and I think uh I think you said this once, and I was very impressed by this, and I agree. If you're not from Texas, uh if you look up a single blue bonnet or you see a single blue bonnet, it's a very pretty flower, but they're really designed to be viewed in big, big fields. Yeah hundreds, thousands of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

And if you're not from Texas, maybe the only wildflowers you're familiar with are dandelions. Yeah, could be, you know. Um, which are pretty too in bunches. Um, I'm not throwing shade at dandelions, but blue bonnets are are really pretty. Then there's not a lot of blue flowers out there, and they're really cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

That's true, that's true. So if you if you ever want to come down and see a live recording of uh Dirt Nap City, we'll bring you down at a time when we're having blue bonnets and we'll we'll make arrangements.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

We'll do a live show. We'll do a live show on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, right in the blue bonnets. Um, you accused me last time of giving um less than great clues, you know, like he was married.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

You said that didn't help at all. Yeah, I'm not bright. So or you'll say his middle name was Cecil. And that doesn't help me.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Well, unless unless uh yeah, unless that was part of his fame. But in this case, I'm gonna start with probably the biggest clue of all. Uh, she was born in 1910, and we have only done one other episode with a female pro protagonist, and that was Eleanor Roosevelt, right? So this is our second one. Uh, there's a lot of great, interesting dead women out there, and Alex and I are both really into interesting dead women.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I wish you hadn't put thrown me into that category. I mean, uh into, I don't know about into, but sure. You have a whole podcast about it, friend.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

I mean, that's true. You gotta be into it or or or you're out of it. So this woman was born in 1910. She did die in 1997, so she reached a pretty ripe old age, 87 years old. She did live throughout the 20th century, which Alex proclaimed in his in the previous episode that that was his favorite century. So if you you know, if you're gonna check stuff out, check out the 20th century. Um, a lot of dirt knap city alumni from the 20th century.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Probably more than any other century, right? I bet more people died in the 20th century than any other century.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, you you're probably right about that because of uh science and population. Yeah, um our our subject this week uh was born in a town called Skopje. That is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. Now I had to look up where Macedonia is. Do you know anything about Macedonia?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Is it over by uh kind of north of uh Greece and Turkey, maybe by uh Serbia?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yes, yes. Okay, Mr. I look at the Einstein here. Um circ uh it is bordered by Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, kind of um Baltic, I think, Slavic region.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

I think that's where Alexander the Great was from. Yeah, that could be.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Maybe future episode uh and that was definitely part of the Ottoman Empire um when this woman was born. So she was born in 1910, and when she was 18 years old, she actually moved to Ireland and then she moved to India. Now she moved to Ireland for the express interest of learning English, but she only lived there for about a year, year and a half. After she had learned enough English, she went ahead and moved to India to fulfill her life's work. Um, like I said, she died in '97. She ended up learning five different languages. Like she was fluent by by the time she died. She knew uh, of course, Serbian, Albanian, English, Hindi, and Bengali when she uh from living in India.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Oh, so are we talking about Mother Teresa?

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yes, we are. We are. I feel so I feel so proud of myself that I finally led you down a path. Of course, everybody listening to this already knew who it was, but yeah, she was actually born with the name uh Agnesa Gon Gonsi Bogjexia.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

That's a beautiful name.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Rolls off the tug. Now, Anjesa is uh actually the I guess Slavic or um Albanian or Serbian version of Agnes, so we can know that, and then Gonexia, um, which I'm sure I'm saying incorrectly, means rosebud or little flower in Albanian. So she was Agnes Little Flower. But when she eventually passed away, she became a saint. And on September 4th, 2016, she became Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Oh, now if you need to know more about how saints happen, uh listen to our um Saint Valentine's episode. We go through the whole thing about uh about how someone becomes a saint.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

That's right. It's not a it's not just an automatic thing. There's actually quite a bit of you know, the devil's advocate and such.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

You can't just be a good person. Yep. And the devil's advocate, yeah, that's right. That's the person who's kind of always poking holes in your story.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Right. And and I will say, even though Mother Teresa was well loved by many and is kind of, you know, the reason she fits this show well is because she's somebody that a lot of people have heard of. I think her name is synonymous with kindness and giving and charity and things like that. But most people don't know a lot about her.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Oh, are you you're not gonna blow the lid on that off of this thing, are you?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Oh, oh, uh well, well, we're gonna talk about a little bit of controversy, but oh man. Well, there there wasn't that much, honestly. But I'll let I'll let I'll let the viewers or the listeners decide.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Are you gonna serve in the role of devil's advocate today?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Uh yeah, I'm I'm just a neutral storyteller. I I I am uh neither a fan nor detractor of Mother Teresa, but I I definitely want to tell her story because there's a lot of interesting facts about it. For example, she knew as a child by the age of 12 that she actually wanted to serve in the church. She was uh Catholic and she was fascinated by stories about missionaries. Um and so at the age of 12, she kind of was telling everybody, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? And she said, I want to be, I want to serve in the church. I want to be a nun. Now, her father did die when she was young, I think at the age of 10 or so. So maybe, I don't know, maybe she had some things going on where she was looking into spirituality and stuff like that because of the fact that her father had died at an early age. But in 1928, when she was 18 years old, she left her home, uh, you know, in Skopje to go and join the Sisters of Loreto. Now, that is at an abbey in Ireland, and really that was her first step because she didn't know English at the time. So she had to go there to learn English. Because I guess even though the Catholic Church is, I guess you would think Latin or Italian would be primary languages, and I think they are for many of the services and such, English was the commonly spoken uh language of the missionaries.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I wonder how common that is for people to um leave and run away to be like run away to another part of the world to uh to to be nuns or priests.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I'll bet it was more common back then. What do you think? And and it was probably more common in, you know, if you were born in a country that was a little more religious and less secular, you know. I would think as Americans in a modern age, that's a really foreign concept to us. But, you know, if you grew up in in maybe a less well-off country, I don't know. That's that's a great question, but it's sort of a it's a little bit of a um cliche, right? He ran away to be a priest, or you know, she ran away to be a nun.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

But their seminaries are full now. I mean, there's there's lots of people that still do that. I'm just wondering about how common it is to run away to a different part of the world where you don't know the language and and do that, how common that is, but it definitely takes determination. I mean, that's that's really knowing what you want to do when you're 18, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, well, and she knew at the age of 12. So she had already been saying for six years, I'm gonna I want to be a nun and uh and go join the church and and be a missionary specifically. So she she did um learn English at, like I said, the Loreto Abbey in Ireland. And after that, she was able to uh move to Darjeeling, India. Now, I didn't really get any details about why this happened, but when she left her family at the age of uh 18 in 1928, she never actually saw her sister or her mother again. Her father had died, but she she left and kind of went on her own way and and uh maybe they died while she was gone, or she just never had a chance to go back. But she never saw her family again. She she kind of, you know, the church became her family. And what after she moved to Darjeeling, India, she took her first religious vows in 1931. So that would have been the age of 21-ish. When she did take those vows, she chose to be named after the patron saint of missionaries whose name was Teresa de Lisieux. And she actually took a different spelling of the name Teresa without an H. So Teresa de Lisoux is T-H-E-R-E-S-E. Maybe that's uh Italian or French. And then she took it T-E-R-E-S-A. So it was a different spelling. She didn't have the H, and she used an A at the end instead of an E because there was already a Teresa with the other spelling in the convent at the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Like Einstein, it seems like Mother Teresa is one of those kind of uh colloquial terms for when someone's a do-gooder, um, that they uh they use Mother Teresa in a in a sarcastic way to describe somebody.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah, yeah. You know, like if you were if you want if you wanted to come stay with me for a few days, I might say, eh, you can stay for free for a week, but then I gotta pay because I'm no Mother Teresa, eh?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Suddenly I'm Italian.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah, what character is that that you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 12:01

I I don't know. That's the that's the uh that's the Italian guy. Hey. That's put off by people staying with him. So she moved to George Geeling, she took those vows in 1931, and then six years later, she took even more vows. Now, her first vows were what they call first vows, and they were her first religious vows. The um 1937 vows, six years later, were called the solemn vows. And when she took those, she was a teacher, and she actually was able to become have the title mother. So I think you know, you think about Catholic school, Catholic nuns, you know, there's a lot of stories about people getting their hands slapped because they misbehaved and the nuns being very um kind of cruel or taskmasters strict. Strict, yeah, that's a good word for it. I think you know, there were two different levels of nun. There was sister and there was mother. So in 1937, she became mother Teresa instead of sister Teresa. And then she actually was appointed a couple of years later um in 1944. So she would have only been 34 years old at that point. She was appointed the headmistress of the school in Calcutta.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

That's when they they started referring to her as mother, like when she was in her late 20s.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, I think it has to do not just with her age, but probably with her devotion, probably with her rank. And she had to be a smart lady because she obviously built something really big, which we're gonna talk about in a moment. Now, she did enjoy teaching uh as the as the headmistress at the school, and she felt it was um a very fulfilling job. However, she was very bothered by the poverty in Calcutta. I guess there was a lot of poverty around her all the time. And so in 1946, two years after she had become hes headmistress, she was visiting Darjeeling by train, and she felt a call um to become the sort of guardian and caretaker for the poor in India, and she felt it came directly from Jesus. So so after that, um she did ask permission and she received it to leave the school in 1950, and she founded the Missionaries of Charity, which was sort of her the thing she was known for. Did you had you heard of that before, the Missionaries of Charity?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Uh not in the that, no, not that that I've sort of like the sisters of charity and the sisters of the poor and all that. Not in the mission of charity.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

They were all knockoffs. They were all they were all uh Me Toos and um wannabes of the missionaries of charity. No, I think you know, it was a an organization that started off small and eventually grew to be pretty large and world famous. That was founded in 1950, and she actually was able to um get permission from the church to make it an official Catholic organization. So um she had to go to the uh the cat Calcutta Diocese and ask for her organization, the missions of charity, to be recognized by the Catholic Church, which was a big deal. And once it was recognized, she kind of formed a structure for it and a mission statement. And her missions was, in her own words, quote, to take care of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, and all those people who felt unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to society and are shunned by everyone.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Wow, that's great. That's great. We we need more people like that, right?

unknown 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Run towards the run towards that group, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

More like more people like the ones taking care of them, not people like the you know, the naked and crippled.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

But I but we need more people that run towards those people, right? The disaffected, the marginalized, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Uh I here here's my problem right now. You've foreshadowed that you're gonna drop some some some uh controversy on this. And I just am I'm uh cringing at the fact that you're gonna tell me she was a fraud or a fake or a phony or or something like that. I keep waiting for you to say, but did you know that she actually had you know a mansion in uh Fort Lauderdale that where she you know beat uh her workers, or I'm just so afraid you're gonna say something bad.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

She had she had uh she had kids in China making tennis shoes in a sweatshop. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

I I will I will go ahead and I'll I need you to I I'm feeling a lot of tension here that you're gonna drop something bad about this.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

And you know, that's what makes a good show. Is it does keep it going then?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Keep it going.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

But I will tell you, no, it's not there. The things the things that were controversial are very, very minor to to most people. There, there's a few people that get worked up about them. But yeah, I mean, she had this incredible mission statement. And like you said, those people that she was focused on, you know, again, blind, homeless, they're people that we see, particularly homeless people that we see every day. And, you know, I'll be honest for myself, I get very kind of callous and burned out because there seem to be homeless people at almost every intersection I pull up to that want money. And it's like, all right, if I give money to you, what about the 10 other times I'm gonna be asked today, you know, for for a handout? Um, it's it's difficult to, I think, have that unconditional love and be willing to take a vow of poverty and charity like she did. You know, it's it's incredible that she did that.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

I'll tell you what is a seminal moment in one's life is the first time you encounter a homeless person with your child.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

And because they're looking to you, they've never seen this before, they're they're trying to model this behavior, and they're and you're gonna have a conversation about it on the way home, you know?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Um, it's a big, it's a big moment in how you treat that person and what you do and how you explain it. That's a very big deal in a kid's life, I think, is how as is how you you respond to that situation. Yeah. And in Austin, there's a lot of homeless people in Austin, right? Yeah, yeah, there are.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Uh actually, um, kind of, kind of funny story. Um, not really funny, but my nephew, who is in his 20s at this point, we had, he was with my wife and I before our our kids were born, and we pulled up and somebody asked for money. We had some of those crackers, you know, those little packets of crackers with cheese in them. You know, there's like six of them in a packet, three, two, three stacks of two or something like that. And uh tried to give him that, tried to give the person that, and they they declined. They didn't want it. They said no thanks.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Really? I know people that carry um bags of those things around in their yeah, bottled water, yeah, those kind of things.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

I, you know, just as an aside, for me, it always feels better giving somebody something like that versus giving them money. But I think the ultimate thing you could do is to volunteer, you know, volunteer for mobile loaves and fishes or volunteer for community first or meals on wheels, you know. I guess that's more for elderly, but you know, those kind of things are where you have a system in place and you're helping people versus just this sort of ad hoc. Um, I'm gonna give you five bucks or I'm gonna hand you a box of crackers, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah, yeah. Definitely you can you can touch more more people that way and it's a little more organized. Unfortunately, the person that you're seeing doesn't always get those services, doesn't always go to those resources.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Right, right. Either because they don't want to or because they can't or they don't know about it. But yeah, um, yeah, I mean, that's a whole other topic. But I guess ultimately, I think what Mother Teresa did that that is challenging in our modern times is to not judge. Um, as a matter of fact, she had a great quote, which I'll go ahead and skip to the quote part. She said, if you judge people, you have no time to love them.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Wow. See, that's that that line right there is pure love. Like I know people that would not be able to come up with that line because they don't feel that way, right? And that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

So again, uh the year 1950, she founded the the the Missionaries of Charity, became recognized as an official Catholic organization. She I told you the the sort of mission statement for it. And when she started, there were only 12 members. She had 12 people working with her by 2020. The organization had 5,167 members serving in 139 countries and uh had 760 facilities that were all over the place, with uh 250 of them being in India.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Wow, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

They manage homes now. That's one of the things they do, is they have places for people with HIV and AIDS and leprosy and tuberculosis. Um, they have soup kitchens, they have medical dispensaries where they um hand out medications, they have mobile clinics, uh, they have orphanages, schools, all that kind of stuff. And every member, so like I said, now there's over 5,000, or at least in 2020, there were. Uh, every member has to take a vow of chair chastity, poverty, and obedience. And they have to profess a fourth vow to give wholehearted free service. To the poorest of the poor.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

So those are all volunteers and all the resources are charitable donations.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Well, yes and no. Um now is where you tell me she's skimming off the top, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

No, no, no. Uh, but I I want to point out when we say volunteers, we're not talking about people like us who have a full-time job and go, you know, do meals on wheels on the boat. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

These are people that devoted a life of poverty. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

They agree to um to live a life of poverty and to actually not own worldly possessions, you know, and so that's a pretty big deal that she was able to convince them. No, in terms of the the donations, yes, of course, that's a big part of it. Um, she also received she's received money for a variety of things, including a Nobel Prize, right? So she won a Nobel Prize, and there's money that goes with that when you win a Nobel Prize. She donated that money to the organization, you know, and that became You can't do that and then keep the money, keep the cash. As a matter of fact, when you worked as a sister under Mother Teresa, you had to agree to give up your worldly goods, and they had a very specific list of things they could own. Um, and that was three soris. And you know, a sorry is like a dress in India.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Oh, I thought you meant the board game.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

S-A-R-I. Uh cut that out. That's that's three soris, one to wear, one to wash, and one to mend is how it was put. Three cotton habits. Now you know what a habit is, right? Yeah, I got a lot of bad ones. What the what yeah, a lot of bad habits here. Um, what the nuns wear, a girdle. They they were allowed a girdle, a pair of sandals, a crucifix, a rosary, a plate, a set of cutlery, a cloth napkin, a canvas bag, had to be canvas, a prayer book. And then in cold countries, they were allowed to own a cardigan sweater and a coat, a scarf, and closed shoes if it was cold. That was it. Well, that's it. Couldn't own a car, couldn't own a house. You don't really need a car. Couldn't own a laptop.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

I mean you think that's true, they don't have laptops these days.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Well, this this was maybe these were the original rules for the OG uh sisters. I I would guess they probably have access to laptops that are communal, that belong to the organization, you know, versus no good, no good apps, though. Yeah, right. They're not playing Words with Friends or Angry Birds. Um I'm sure it's all locked down from their IT department, right? So they actually had to spend nine years to become a full-fledged member of the mission um missionary of charity. So it took nine years, and there was an initial short-term come and see period that you could go do, and they found that over 50% of the people that did that initial you know, come visit uh dropped out. It was pretty high.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

I would yeah, I would think, yeah. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Um in 1970. Uh yeah, I said over 50%, so could could be higher, but um at least half the people dropped out in 1979. The contemplated branch of the brothers was added, um, and that was a group of men. So initially, and that was the missionary missionaries of charity fathers versus the mothers. So um initially it was an all-women's organization, all nuns, but eventually they allowed the brothers and fathers to join um in their branch. And here's where the criticism came. A couple of things. Get ready for a big bomb.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Oh, here we go. You're telling me she and the when the fathers came in, this is where the trouble started.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Oh, yeah, yeah. They said, ladies, get ready. Step aside. So uh it it really came down to the conditions at their facilities. So uh, you know, I said earlier they had um like 250 uh 760 homes worldwide, 250 in in um India. Basically, people who well-intending people would volunteer or reporters would go or whatever and see the conditions of these homes, and they weren't great. They were, you know, sometimes dirty, they were sometimes uh lacking modern things, they were sometimes lacking the right kind of medicine for people, you know, who had all these diseases that they were being served. And so she basically got some bad press because of those things. But ultimately, I think most people agreed that she was doing the best and the organization was doing the best they could with what they had.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

But you're saying she might not have taken care of their own people, the people that were actually doing this good work, they could have taken care of them a little better.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yes, and the people they were serving, like like uh dirty conditions. If you if you had if you had AIDS or or HIV, um, you know, your immune system is compromised, right? And and if you're living in a third world country, the conditions that you were in in one of their house at one of um their facilities, missionary of charities facilities, may not have been much better than what you had before, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

But if you were living a life of poverty, um you probably didn't think it was maybe that bad. It's like, well, shoot, we're not living much better than this. Uh yeah, yeah, true. As long as you're going home to your mansion at night and then.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Well, those were the people that I think criticized, right? The people that did go home to their mansions at night, or or the you know, the reporters, the pe the people that saw that looked at the glass half empty, you know, is hey, you're trying to do great work, but your facility's not very clean, you know. So what's up with that? So that that's really that was kind of number one. And then the other big the biggest controversy really, um, can you guess what the what the bigger controversy uh behind Mother Teresa was?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Oh man. I hope it wasn't anything like mismanaging money. No, no, no, it had nothing to do with money. I had I hope it wasn't um that she was some kind of fraud or phony or anything.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Not none of that. It was one of her beliefs that that is still a hot button topic today. As a matter of fact, it's even more of a hot button topic because Roe v. Wade just got um into trouble. She was very outspoken against abortion, devout Catholic. Right, right. And so therefore, she kind of got some grief from people that felt like and and she was she was against abortion in any situation, right? You know, medical, whatever. This was God's will that the baby be born. Um, and and I think, you know, me personally, I I guess we don't want to get into it too much, but I think where I struggle sometimes with that is um, okay, what's gonna happen to this child if it's born? You know, if it's born into a really bad situation, is that is that fair to the child? Um I'm not saying that the child shouldn't be born, but I guess what I'm saying is um people who felt that way didn't agree with her just absolute 100% all the time, abortion is bad.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

I mean, she was a she was an extension of the church, though. I mean, uh even if she did have personal opinions the other way, she would her mind probably wouldn't let herself go there because she was a I mean, you talked about all the vows that she had to take. I mean, those are part of those vows.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

And as she got older, she became more and more vocal about that and um, you know, had more and more fame and a bigger platform. And so that's really it. I think she just um kind of got some uh criticism, not for not trying to be a good person or not for her deeds, but more sometimes just for her sort of rigidness with which she believed in things, which you know, I can see where that could be off-putting to some people, but ultimately is that enough to make you a a you know, a hater. One of these one of these um preachers on TV that takes your money. She wasn't ever that, you know, she wasn't ever she wasn't ever a huckster, she wasn't ever a snake oil person, she wasn't ever a a T and I, you know, I'm not saying all bad all TV preachers are bad. I'm just saying there's a stereotype there for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Do you happen to know what miracles she performed?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

I do, I do, and we're gonna get to that in just a minute. But before we get there, I I do want to tell you that she actually uh was recognized by the royal family. Queen Elizabeth um met her in India and spent some time with her and spoke very highly of her. Princess Diana also was a big fan and actually had a quote that she said that um Mother Teresa found the direction that I've been looking for all these years. And so Princess Diana kind of felt like Mother Teresa had things figured out.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yeah, and she she definitely kind of walked in some of those footsteps too, uh reaching out to people. I mean, she famously was photographed hugging kids with AIDS back in the uh yeah, and that was something that that was something that many people were afraid to do.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Mother Teresa never was. Um, she won the Nobel Prize, as I said, in 1979. Oh, so I know what it was. It wasn't that there was money that she was going to receive. There was supposed to be a large ceremony with, you know, food and banquets and dignitaries and all that sort of thing. She did not want that. She took the money, which was estimated around $200,000, and that's the money she said. If instead of throwing a big uh party for me for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, can can we please give that money to the to the poor? And they said no. They threw the party anyway. Um, so another thing that she said that I thought was really great, they said um when she received the Peace Prize, she was asked, What can we do to promote world peace? And you know what she answered? Simplest answer, but best answer ever. She said, Go home and love your family.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

So oh wow. If everybody does that, yeah, why not?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, as we talked about in child raising uh books from the past, loving your family wasn't always was you weren't supposed to show it anyway, right? Yeah. Some of those early so her her answer to how can we have more world peace. I guess it was kind of the the predecessor to um peace begins at home.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

The debate I have a lot of times with my psychologist friends is whether or not altruism is a real thing. And I have a lot of cynical friends that believe there's no such thing as true altruism.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Everything you do is for a uh underlying purpose, hidden.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, even if that so it maybe it you do something nice because it makes you feel good, and they're right that idea is that it's not true. Yeah, that's not true altruism because it's kind of selfish because you're doing it for your own. And I just have always rejected that notion. I I think that people like Mother Teresa are are not common, but they're special, they're different, they're they've got something that other people don't have. They've got wanting to go towards people that nobody else wants to touch, I think that's that's different. I I don't think we all have that inside us. I think some people have that and others don't. And they always those people always find their way uh to do good. But I really do believe that their true altruism does does exist.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

And and it takes courage, you know, it takes takes that combination of altruism and courage. You know, I've heard that the way you judge a person is the way they treat the lowest person in their in their status, the lowest status person they meet up with. So again, going back to like homeless, if you treat somebody who's homeless with respect and kindness, and you do it not in front of your kid, because if you did it in front of your kid, why are you doing it? Well, I gotta set a good example for my kid, you know. That's but but that's that's where true altruism would be is if you can do that. And yeah, it's interesting that that uh she was the embodiment of that, and I think she would have been without all the attention, even. Like I don't imagine that she Yeah, she definitely didn't do this for fame, right? Yeah, but but the fame came and ultimately she found that um the only time she said that she she appreciated worldly and material possessions was when they helped her cause. You know, it was when they when they were able to and truly helped her cause. Again, not not didn't buy her an airplane so she could jet from here to there, yeah, but they went into the hands of these people that she was trying to help. And you know, you heard the list. I mean, naked, poor, uh, you know, bereaved.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

She she probably rejected fame at the beginning and then realized that fame equaled a platform, and a platform equaled more revenue, and yeah, they got it all rolling.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

It's it was it was a way to a way to accomplish what she wanted to accomplish, you know, and that's good question about do the ends justify the means kind of thing. But but ultimately, um getting back to the the controversy, um she did single out abortion as the great, and this is a quote, greatest destroyer of peace today, because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill? Uh what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There's nothing between us. And and so, you know, again, that that rigidity there was something that she had detractors from, you know, and and and also some people were critical of her because she didn't want to teach any sort of um, I guess, sex education or teaching about contraception, or again, going back to the Catholicism, right? Those were things that she wasn't a fan of teaching and outspokenly uh not a fan of teaching. And people felt like in a poor country like India, that could be very helpful, you know, and it could be helpful to not have as many unwanted children.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

And there's nothing stopping anyone else from doing that. They don't need to put that on her to do that if she's not. True, true.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

But but she not only she not only didn't teach it, but I think she said it was sinful. Like to, you know, to to to teach about contraception would be a sin. Sure. And so she was she was not she wasn't neutral on it, she was opposed to it, and so that's where she had some detractors. But she did suffer some medical ailments over the years. In 1983 in Rome, um, she was visiting John Paul II and she had a heart attack. She had another heart attack in 1989, and she actually got a pacemaker put in in 1991. She had pneumonia and had more heart problems at that point. In 1996, she fell and broke her collarbone, and then she had malaria, she had heart failure, she went underwent heart surgery, and then the Archbishop of Calcutta actually ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on her at one point because he thought the devil had gotten to her.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Oh my goodness. That's uh that's shooting high for the devil.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Yeah, it is, and it and it's interesting. You know, it says uh it did say with her permission that she she received the exorcism um uh from the archbishop.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Oh, I didn't know you needed consent to perform an exorcism.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

I don't know if you do or not, but in this case it was given. You know, it was probably just a professional courtesy, right? They're both they're both professionals. Um she ended up dying in 1997, so 87 years old. And when she died, the Holy See began the process of beatification, and that was the whole process we talked about in the St. Valentine's episode, as you mentioned, the steps toward being canonized. And it was interesting, some of the people involved in that had had there was a quote. Uh, I don't know who said this, but it this is what was said about her becoming a saint. We didn't have to prove that she was perfect or never made a mistake, we had to prove that she was a virtuistic hero.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yeah. She um was on the fast track, I believe. I that's one of the I think when I was doing the St. Valentine's prep, I think she had um one of the fastest ascents to sainthood that anybody's ever had. Sometimes people have to wait over a hundred years for that.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Well, she she died in ninety-seven, and she was declared a saint in 2016, I believe. Yeah, that's that's pretty quick. 19 years. 19 years. Um, yeah, she was canonized on September 4th, 2016. There were miracles that had to happen. So in 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of a woman named Monica Becerra, who was from India. And what Monica said was that she had held a locket containing Teresa's picture. And uh Monica Becerra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture and it um basically healed her cancerous tumor. Now there was some controversy because her husband and the medical staff said she was also on medical treatment at the time, you know, regular medical treatment. But um Monica Becerra said that happened. It was it was um verified, the Vatican recognized it, so there was miracle number one, and then uh miracle number two happened in 2015, so 13 years later. Um no, actually, I'm sorry, miracle number two happened in 2008, but it was recognized in 2015 by the Vatican. Uh Pope Francis recognized it, and it was the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors. So that happened in 2008.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

After she died, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

These were things that um happened like because of her picture or because of presence. So the other one, um, with the first one, she was uh the one she wasn't there, it was a locket that had her picture that. So um, you know, she was beyond the body, I guess, at that point.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Yeah, and then the as we said before, the um devil's advocate looks into all this, does an investigation, tries to poke holes in these stories.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah, yeah. And those, I mean, those things I do think um, you know, they were taken quite seriously. There was a large committee involved in all this, and uh, but you know, Pope Francis recognized it. I think you know, not a not a lot of people are gonna argue with him if he says he believes it. So um, there is a Mother Teresa Women's University that was established in 1984 in India, so it's kind of famous. Um, there are several documentaries about her, including a film in 1969 called Beautiful for God, that was done by Malcolm Muggeridge, and it was kind of the first time the Western world was uh introduced to Mother Teresa and who she was and what she was doing in 1969.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Oh, really? Yeah, that's kind of when she got her big um her big break.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, yeah. That that that uh particular film again came out in '69. It it um really kind of helped put her into the world stage.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

She's one of those people like someone that we've talked about in the past. You really don't ever see pictures like Geronimo. You don't really never see pictures of her as a young person.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Right, right. Actually, I did find some. I did find some pictures of her as a young person when she first went to Ireland and first went to Calcutta. Really? Um, or Darjeeling. Yeah, yeah. So there was also sort of a detractor uh documentary in 1994 called Hell's Angel by a guy named Christopher Hitchkin. And that was basically his his issue with her in that film was that she portrayed people with money and wealth as being more sinful, and that she encouraged poor people to be poor. That was sort of his issue with it. Is you know, he saw saw it more as people should want to lift themselves up, and she kind of let them stay where they were. Oh, wow. And so that's an interesting take. Sort of the yeah, the hell hell's not hell's angels, but hell's angels, singular. Um, Mother of the Century in 2001 was a documentary film that came out about her, more in the positive light. Um, that was actually produced by the film division of the government of India. And Mother Teresa, No Greater Love was 2022, so not that long ago that came out, and that has a lot of uh access to institutional archives and things that people hadn't seen before from the church, from her personal life, etc. So um I might check that out. No uh Mother Teresa, no greater love, 2022.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Do she have what kind of legacy besides the university and the the um I mean besides uh and the the um mothers of charity, does she have any um like heir appearance, like any people that kind of took her place, any voice? She didn't have any children because her vows. anybody step in and take that role?

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Uh I don't think anybody with the fame that she did it with, right? I don't think there's anybody who has her panache that that is currently in that role. The organization is still going. As I said, in 2020 2020, it was, you know, over almost 6,000 people strong and and devout people to that, right? Of course, then there's also going to be the ancillary people. But no, I don't I don't think there's anybody who stepped in to become, you know, at the level she was in terms of the public eye, the public um opinion, etc. I mean, it's like Walt Disney, right? When he died, oh yeah, okay, there he had a brother, but no nobody really took his place, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:42

You know, it's the name is Disney, and it it's gonna stick with Did she insist that people become Catholic before she um or like convert before she uh administered them? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

No, nope, nope. It was completely unconditional, and that was part of part of their mission. I thought that was even in the mission statement, but but no, they didn't have to be they didn't have to believe in God, they didn't have to repent their sins, they didn't have to do anything. All they had to do was accept her her help, you know, and there might have even been cases where they didn't, you know, maybe they were unconscious or couldn't speak the language or whatever, but but she she gave everything she gave to these people without expectation of them giving anything in return.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

That sounds like altruism to me.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

Yeah, I would say it's about as close as a person can get, you know. Um, and so I kind of want to wrap up with a few of my favorite quotes. If you if you Google Mother Teresa quotes, there's a lot of them out there, but these were I think it's like seven or so that I found really uh short and poignant and relevant today. Um, first one is every time you smile at someone, it's an act of love, a gift to that person, and a beautiful thing. I love that. So there you go. See that, Alex?

SPEAKER_00 45:59

That is a fake ass smile.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

For those of you that can't see, I just gave Alex a very fake, but it was a smile. It was uh thanks for not taking it.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

We call that a duchesne smile. Have you ever heard that term? Duchesne smile? No, but that's a fake smile. And and everybody can detect that. Like people can detect fake smiles. Do you know why? Because it's because you're not using all the bones. Smile with your eyes, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, that's that's an interesting thing because you know I do a lot of photography and video, and I have to tell that people that I have to say, smile with your eyes. You don't you don't smile, and you can even smile with a mask on, and people can see it.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Right, right. Yeah, use that drop that douche.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

It's not anything to do with being a douche. Named Shane. Yeah, no. A Scottish douche. Yeah. I laddie, I'm Shane. Um, another great quote: if you judge people, you will have no time to love them, as I said earlier. You know, kind of there's not room for love and judgment. You have to have one or the other. Uh peace begins with a smile. Back to the smiling. And it's true. Um, if you smile, I've heard this. If you are reading something, for example, a voiceover for a video or a movie or whatever, if you smile or you're talking on the phone, people can hear it in your voice if you're smiling, if you're happy. Like it makes a difference in the way you present yourself.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah, there's a Michael Scott uh there's a there's an office episode where he too he's teaching Pam how to how to to uh to smile with the when she's on the phone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

So this one is probably my favorite of all these quotes. Uh, not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Yeah. And then two more. Uh one relevant to her death, and one that I just think is awesome. The one relevant to her death, she said, and this is before she died, of course. If I ever become a saint, I will surely be one of darkness. I will be continually absent from heaven to shine the light of those in the darkness on earth. And then the last one, and this is this is great. This is actually really, really wonderful for uh creators such as ourselves, podcast, YouTube, TikTok, whatever you're into. Show up, show up, show up. And after a while, the muse shows up too. She said that?

SPEAKER_00 48:32

Yeah, according to according to the interwebs. So how what context did she mean it in?

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Just show up, just um I think it means I think it means be present, is is uh do things, dedicate yourself to it. Like don't quit, right? Show up, show up again, show up again, show up again. And eventually the muse shows up, and you know, the muse is what gives you your inspiration, it's what gives you your your um creativity.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Why did she need creative creativity?

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Well, she needed uh inspiration, first of all, to start an organization and run it. She probably needed creativity to convince people to join, right? How do you convince you know, like I said, up front, she had 12 members when she first started and now over 5,000. But those 12 members, if I came to you and said, Alex, I want you to give up, see that big longhorn and your trumpet and your bookshelf and your computer and your you know 78 Dodge Dart, all that stuff, you're gonna give it up and come feed people that need your help. Uh, that would take some convincing and some creativity. I'd probably have to trick you.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think she got most of those people there by convincing them, though. They probably all wanted to be there in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

If she has to talk you into it, you're not gonna Yeah, you're part of that uh wait and come come and see group, right? That that that um fades out. But but on the same same time, she does have to convince you that coming to her organization is the right one, right? Because there's multiple ways to do this. There's multiple ways, and maybe some of these people were less altruistic than her and they wanted more glory, they wanted more um, you know, maybe that was her way of weeding them out, right? Is to is to put it in such a position where if you weren't doing this truly for the love of mankind and your fellow um, you know, brothers and sisters in Christ, um, you weren't gonna be someone that she would accept.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

Yeah, if you show up and say, What's in it for me?

unknown 50:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Not the right, right, right person to be there, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I do think that uh Donald Trump did do a go go try it and see day at at the missionaries um for charity. And he went the other way. Yeah, he's he said, uh, I'm not gonna, this isn't my thing. It's not bigly enough. So that is what I know about uh Mother Teresa. I think she is again someone who doesn't really have scandal. And and even the fact that I might not disagree with her about you know, particular stands on things like reproduction, I respect that she stood so steadfastly to it, you know, and that she didn't mince words. She didn't she didn't try to play it both ways.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

Absolutely. Um that she she definitely like to become the exemplar and the avatar for good work and good deed and and and kind of like you said, an aspirational way to live one's life, even if you just take a fraction of what she did. And she even gave us advice by saying, just love your family, start there, you know?

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah, yeah. Simple, simple advice too. It's not this isn't like a you know 15-step program that you have to follow. It's it's really simple. Just start with that and it goes from there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

If all you ever do in your life is love your family, you've had a great life. Yeah. You know, write that down someday when you say my seven quotes, is that gonna be one of them?

SPEAKER_01 52:04

That will definitely be one of them. And and uh I will say too that um I think Alex, at some point you will be the personification of something. I don't know what it's gonna be, but um, you know, they're gonna say, Well, I'm no Alex Mylam, but yeah, you know there was a compliment in there somewhere. We'll never know till we try. And this has been another episode of the amazing and always changing dirt nap city. You know, we have no limits on the number of people that we want to join this city. We think everybody should be invited to come live here, and everybody is welcome. You know, it's just a matter of timing. When do you want to come? It doesn't matter. Just come when you're ready. I would be it's gonna be a while for me. Yeah, sure. That's that's why you and I serve as mediums between the two worlds, right? Yeah, is that what we are?

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Mediums. Kind of, it's kind of what we are. We're the mediums. We're looking extra large.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

We're the mediums between uh the interesting people here on earth and the interesting people in dirt nap city. Yeah, we're here to tell their stories. By the way, I didn't tell you earlier, this is intended to be the Mother's Day special. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

All right, makes sense?

SPEAKER_01 53:18

Sure. So go hug your mother and uh wish her well and um do something nice for your mother, your father, your family, and start with that, and we'll make a better world together. Happy Mother's Day, everybody.