Written in Santa Maria della Vittoria

The feast, it happened, of Saints Peter and Paul. I’d called in early, for a final look at Saint Teresa in her cosy nook, before the tourists made a shopping mall of this delightful church. My plans on stall (for Mass was under way), I soon forsook my statue contemplation, since the hook the sermon dangled caught me in its thrall. Those two great saints of Roman pedigree had done their time in prison, unlike us, but (said the priest) our new captivity is of our own creation – reasoned, thus: “The Prison of the Ego”. Yes, that’s me. To add one word would be superfluous.