Spiritual Goods
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| (Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. - found here) |
The same house, the same land, cannot belong completely to several
people at once, nor the same territory to several nations. And herein
lies the reason of that unhappy conflict of interests which arises
from the feverish quest of these earthly possessions.
On the other hand, as St. Augustine often reminds us, the same
spiritual treasure can belong in its entirety to all men, and at the
same time to each, without any disturbance of peace between them.
Indeed, the more there are to enjoy them in common the more
completely do we possess them. The same truth, the same virtue,
the same God, can belong to us all in like manner, and yet none of us
embarrasses his fellow-possessors. Such are the inexhaustible
riches of the spirit that they can be the property of all and yet satisfy
the desires of each. Indeed, only then do we possess a truth completely when we teach it to others, when we make others share our contemplation; only then do we wholly love God when we desire to make Him loved by all. Give money away, or spend it. and it is no longer yours. But give God to others, and you possess Him more fully for yourself. We may go even further and say that, if we desired only one soul to be deprived of Him. if we excluded only one soul - even the soul of one who persecutes and calumniates us - from our own love, then God Himself would be lost to us.
This truth, so simple and yet so sublime, gives rise to an illuminating
principle: it is that whereas material goods, the more they are sought
for their own sake, tend to cause disunion among men, spiritual
goods unite men more closely in proportion as they are more greatly
loved. This principle helps us to appreciate how necessary is the
interior life; and, incidentally, it virtually contains the solution of the
social question and of the economic crisis which afflicts the world today. The Gospel puts it very simply:
‘Seek
ye first
the
kingdom
of God
and his
justice,
and all
these
things
shall be
added
unto
you.’
If the world to-day is on its death-bed, it is because it has lost sight
of a fundamental truth which for every Christian is elementary.”
~Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
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