Volume 27, Issue 2, Fall/Winter 2007
Margaret R. Pfeil
Pages 127-149
Liturgy and Ethics
The Liturgical Asceticism of Energy Conservation
THE CONCEPT OF LITURGICAL ASCETICISM SERVES TO RELATE LITURGY and ethics as seen in the case of energy conservation. Disciplined practices undertaken to limit energy consumption can deepen contemplative awareness of God's creative energy as work in the world and the moral significance of human cooperation with it as an expression of one's baptismal commitment rooted within a particular faith community. The liturgical location of the moral agent who engages in such askesis implies a sacramentally informed epistemology as a way of knowing oneself in relation to God and all of created reality that imbues conservation practices with eschatological meaning.