"Without God, the seriousness of life gets out of focus. If religion is no longer a grave matter but something to smile at, then the serious element in life must be sought elsewhere. Some place it, or pretend to place it, in science or in social activity; they devote the selves religiously to the search for scientific truth or to the establishment of justice between classes or peoples. After a while they are forced to perceive that they have ended in fearful disorder and that the relations between individuals and nations become more and more difficult, if not impossible. As St. Augustine and St. Thomas (6) have said, it is evident that the same material goods, as opposed to those of the spirit, cannot at one and the same time belong integrally to several persons. The same house, the same land, cannot simultaneously belong wholly to several men, nor the same territory to several nations. As a result, interests conflict when man feverishly makes these lesser goods his last end."
A friend in Poland tipped me off to the availability on the www of the classnotes in English for the course which Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, taught for years at the Angelicum University in Rome (long before I was born). I hope to have time to read them during my upcoming vacation. Take a look yourself and see whether these same things aren't timeless in terms of the value in the discussion of life priorities. To my mind, this is another "grand old man" who deserves to be read and discussed by the youth of today. Here is page 1
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