There are various ecumenical approaches to God's grace. This is one which seeks to understand the dynamic relationship between grace and creation, the uncreated and the created, or more specifically between God's Uncreated Energy (a principal Eastern concept of grace) and created energies. Faithful to the Magisterium, we are here seeking an understanding, a study, a theology of energies or energy (generically). One may even call it a general panoramic description of everything regarding the totality of uncreated and created, visible and invisible realities.
Indeed, there are now various types
of theology of energy, e.g., the New Age type and the present
study. As theology needs to be renewed in every generation (Gaudium
et spes, 62), our effort represents, therefore, a certain
connection between the Eastern Orthodox concept of Divine Energy
and the Western Christian notion of grace. Here we do not aim
to replace but only to help enhance, wherever possible, the understanding
of our Christian faith.
By all appearances, we may be the only website at the present moment committed to doing this ecumenically or universally Catholic (when we are breathing with our two lungs) version of theology of energy. The three key terms which may characterize the fundamental nature of this theology are: Energization (i.e., the working of God's grace), Familization (i.e., the making of God's Family in the Holy Trinity ad extra or reaching out to us) and Heavenization.
Clearly, there is no complete ecumenical approach or methodology in any ecumenical endeavour. This theology may be too progressive to some, while being too conservative to others. Hence, it needs to be upgraded, again and again. However, its initial version has to be first done. Just as version 1.0 of Word Perfect, it does not have to be perfect as it is completed only to be further advanced, slowly but surely. Our goal is reached if we could somehow help one another understand a little more the dynamic relationship between grace and nature through various energy terms. As everything is increasingly viewed as energy and defined in energy terms, it appears that energy or energy-being (after "being") is emerging as a universal unifying paradigm sweeping beyond its narrow scope, through various disciplines, and into the third millennium.
Hopefully, our works would become a certain part of an answer, at least as a little part of a process, to a problem which Pope John Paul II mentions in his encyclical letter entitled Fides et Ratio (1998): "Taking up what has been taught repeatedly by the Popes for several generations and reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council itself, I wish to reaffirm strongly the conviction that the human being can come to a unified and organic vision of knowledge. This is one of the tasks which Christian thought will have to take up through the next millennium of the Christian era. The segmentation of knowledge, with its splintered approach to truth and consequent fragmentation of meaning, keeps people today from coming to an interior unity." (Ibid., no.85)
Mission: *Our Mission on Earth/
Essays: * Christian Faith Encounters The Celestine Vision/
Notes: *Shining out of Ashes/ *Praying the Holy Rosary/ *Radiation of the Holy Eucharist/ *Every Radiance in Every Radiance/ *Reaching Out/ *A WYD2002 Reflection/ *Energy: Theology of Energy and New Age/ *Who Really Needs Theology of Energy?/
A Long-term Project:
* Publications of Theology of Energy/
* Well, how is the development of Theology of Energy or Chi then? Praise be to God! It is going on langsam, langsam, aber sicher (i.e., slowly, slowly, but surely), although it is given some of the best professors in the world at Fu Jen by Providence (cf. Jn 15:16). Again and again, a word of deep gratitude is due to the whole Divine Heavenly Family (whose presence is most real during the celebration of the Mass and before the Holy Eucharist), as well as to all the wonderful clergy, professors and intercessors in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Canada, etc. Alleluia!
***Started in 1985 in Toronto, Grace Institute of the Holy Eucharist was called then Theology of Energy Research Foundation. However, since the term "energy" seemed to have misled many regarding the nature of our research work, we had to change the original name to our present one in 1997. Although we have attempted to expanded our work to other dimensions of grace, we nonetheless have remained substantially faithful to our original vision with the encouraging help of various professors and scholars.
The recent publication of a special issue of Ultimate Reality and Meaning dedicated to Studies on Energy (vol. 25, no. 4, December 2002) which includes John's article entitled "An Emerging Metaphysical Macroparadigm Shift from Being to Energy-Being"(ibid., 314-330) is a great inspiration and eye-opener to the theological study of energy. Profound gratitude is therefore due to Prof. John Perry, S.J., Editor of URAM at University of Manitoba, as well as to Prof. Kevin Sharpe, an international who's who in science and theology at University of Oxford. With regards such a blessing, Rev. William Addley, S.J., and others said: "Congratulations!" The author can only say, most gratefully: "Praise God! Unceasingly so!"
Further, for the ongoing presentation of the practical good points of Theology Energy, click here. Praise God!
Date: April 5, 2009
