35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

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EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
‘So, no Saint Teresa?’ I smiled at her courage.
‘No Santa Claus, either. What I have learned is that we’ve got to
get used to just being people – with all faults. We’ve gotta stop
putting each other on pedestals because we keep falling off.’
‘Yeah. God. What was it John Lennon said God was?’
‘A concept by which we measure our pain?’
‘Let me say it again . . . Shit. Don’t you wish John was still around?’
I did. I do. I wished her luck.
‘You know what?’ she called after me. ‘She gets high on converting
them, I swear.’
Sometime later, I read MotherTeresa’s words on the function of
missionaries:
A Missionary is a carrier of God’s love, a burning light that
gives light to all; the salt of the earth. It is said of St. Francis
Xavier that ‘he stood up as a fire, and his words burnt like a
torch.’ We have to carry Our Lord in places where He has not
walked before. The Sisters must be consumed with one desire:
Jesus. We must not be afraid to do the things He did – to go
fearlessly through death and danger with Him and for Him.
. . . he stood up as a fire, and his words burnt like a torch. How could
Mother Teresa use such words about the man who’d requested the
Inquisition come to Goa? Yes, Xavier’s words burnt like a torch, all
right.
I wanted to go to the famed Bengal Club for dinner. Lady Sinha’s
son was vomiting blood again, and I didn’t feel the family needed a
guest on its hands. The Taj’s manager, Mansoor, a delightful man,
told me the venerable old club – founded in 1827 – was open only
to members and their guests. He’d happily take me himself, he said,
but his own membership was still pending. Mansoor thoughtfully
considered how to get me in. He remembered that the general
manager was a member and could have taken me as his guest.
Unfortunately, he was away on business. I found it hard to imagine
any Indian institution being so inflexibly rigid as Mansoor seemed