Do Catholics believe nature has spiritual energy?

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I was asked a question about whether mountains, rivers etc have spiritual energy in them and tbh this is the first time I heard of something like that and I feel like I know the Catholic Church’s stance on this but would like to make sure. Thanks!
 
We have holy places like Lourdes, or the shrines in the Holy Land.

Holy meaning “set apart for a transcendent purpose”.
 
Shtove said:
I was asked a question about whether mountains, rivers etc have spiritual energy in them and tbh this is the first time I heard of something like that and I feel like I know the Catholic Church’s stance on this but would like to make sure. Thanks!
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You specified energy. Modern Catholic Dictionary has this on energy:
Inherent power to produce a given effect. The term is commonly applied to physical or natural power, but it may also refer to the spiritual power conferred by divine grace. As supernatural power, it enables a human being to perform actions that are either beyond the capacity of human nature, weakened by sin, or totally beyond the natural capacity of any created being and leading to the possession of God in the beatific vision.
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If there is spiritual power conferred by divine grace it will be in the human soul.

Modern Catholic Dictonary, grace
… As the Church has come to explain the meaning of grace, it refers to something more than the gifts of nature, such as creation or the blessings of bodily health. Grace is the supernatural gift that God, of his free benevolence, bestows on rational creatures for their eternal salvation. …
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Nature is the one things that always recharges my spirit.
 
The Catholic Church does not teach that there is anything “spiritual” about nature itself, except that it was created by God, and reflects His Glory. (Funny, just as I wrote this, I felt what seemed to be like a small earthquake, I asked my mother who is right here in the room if she felt it too, and she said she did. Talk about coincidences!)

I wlll say, though, that I do think there may be something to magnetic fields, air pressure, and possibly even the energy of underground streams and the like. The Chinese may be on the right track about feng shui, but go beyond science and naturally occurring phenomena, to ascribe spirituality to it, and that is where they err. I do know that my parents’ home is on a hillside, unusually situated, the street is kind of undulating, and there is just “something about” that house, and that neighborhood, that is unexpectedly calming. There is even a kind of microclimate to it. The neighbor at the bottom of the hill likes to put lawn chairs in his garage and sit there looking out at the street — I can understand why, it just feels calm and the air is nice. Purely spiritual, no, that would be divination. Combinations of natural forces that we don’t quite understand, very possible.
 
Ah okay. So “energy” is more so grace from God that he gives to humans. So that would mean that the “energy” or grace in this case is not present in mountains, rivers etc?
 
Got it, that makes sense. So basically nature can help someone and their soul in many ways but to say these things have spiritual energy in them is not something the Church teaches?
 
Shtove said:
Ah okay. So “energy” is more so grace from God that he gives to humans. So that would mean that the “energy” or grace in this case is not present in mountains, rivers etc?
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Supernatural grace can be in the human soul and is in the good angelic spirits.

One quote from Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of H.H. Pope Francis, from 2015:
88. The bishops of Brazil have pointed out that nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence. The Spirit of life dwells in every living creature and calls us to enter into relationship with him.[65] Discovering this presence leads us to cultivate the “ecological virtues”.[66] This is not to forget that there is an infinite distance between God and the things of this world, which do not possess his fullness. Otherwise, we would not be doing the creatures themselves any good either, for we would be failing to acknowledge their right and proper place. We would end up unduly demanding of them something which they, in their smallness, cannot give us.
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Psalm 19:1

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

Romans 1:20

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
 
Shtove said:
Got it, that makes sense. So basically nature can help someone and their soul in many ways but to say these things have spiritual energy in them is not something the Church teaches?
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Yes, that is correct. The earth is not a “mother”, a “Gaia”, with a spirit of its own. Men have immortal souls, animals and plants have a life principle, an energy, that is not immortal, and things like rock, dirt, and water have no energy other than that which is in their atoms.
 
The whole point of material things being made out of matter is that God likes matter, and He created matter. Humans are matter and soul, and angels are just spirit and nothing else, but the material creations are uniquely matter.

(Now, that said, the Thomists do talk about “animal souls”, “vegetable souls”, and even souls for things like rocks. This is Aristotle philosophy transposed onto medieval theology and science, so you can’t hear “soul” and think “soul” in a normal way.

(With rocks, they are just talking about the form of the rock and its existingness; it’s not a rational soul like humans have, and it ceases to exist if you pulverize the rock.

(But with animals and plants, they are talking about the livingness of the creature combined with its form as an animal or plant. The idea is that when an animal or plant dies, the livingness and the form go away (unless something should happen like God willing them to persist, or Him remembering them to bring them back later in the new Earth of eternal life).

(So again, we’re really talking about the life and existingness of animals and plants, not a rational soul like humans have. “Soul” doesn’t even seem like the right word, but that’s how it got written down.)

OTOH, and without it being pagan in any way, it has always been Biblical to perceive mystically that God’s creations, even the purely material ones like rocks, do praise and obey Him insofar as their state of existence allows. This shows up in the Psalms and various canticles, and it’s not just a literary device because it affects things that happen historically.

When Jesus walked the world, the waves and the wind did obey Him, and the Lake of Galilee did support His feet. When Jesus died, the earth did quake, and the sun and moon did give no light. God commands His material creations, and they are eager to answer Him. As Jesus said, if the crowds of Jerusalem had been silent, the stones would have cried out.

(Of course, the other thing about Jesus was that He was the New Adam, so Creation responded to Him not only as God, but as the Head of all beings of Earth.

(And whenever saints have unusual power to command or help animals or plants, or storms or the earth, it’s because they are part of Christ’s Body.)

But I think it’s not correct to call this “spiritual power.” The whole point is that they are matter, so it’s “material power” if it’s anything.
 
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