Using Incense Has Become An Expression Of Our Faith

Now don’t start coughing when you read this article about incense!  When I was a child, we used more incense than today.  We probably didn’t have as many allergies then!  We’ve probably all heard stories of incense, used in small chapels, which set off smoke alarms (some were also connected to the local fire station!).  I purchase non-allergenic incense, which doesn’t seem to help much – unless seeing the smoke just makes people start coughing!  Here’s hoping you at least learn how incense came to be used in our Mass and its meaning.

“If appropriate, after kissing the altar, the priest may incense the altar and the cross” (GI 49).  Incensation highlights the solemnity of the feast.  Incense serves the same purpose as flowers, candles, vestments, the organ and other instruments.  Incense rising to the ceiling, filling the whole church with its sweet smell, is intended to involve all our senses.  We worship God with our entire bodies, all our senses – not just with our thoughts and words.

People sense how important our senses are in worship when they enter a newly built church that is predominantly “white” with few symbols.  The lack of beauty in some of these Churches does not allow our minds and hearts to be raised to God.  Attend a Byzantine Liturgy where the Church is filled with icon after icon of the saints and one immediately feels taken up into God’s presence.  We must always maintain a balance in our church architecture because the main focus must always remain on the people’s worship, the altar, the ambo where God’s Word is proclaimed, and the priest’s chair.  God is beauty itself and our churches themselves need to reflect God’s beauty, as well as the manner in which we worship God – not only the decorations, incense, vestments, etc., but also the quality and vibrancy of our worship itself.

In the Church’s earliest days, incense was excluded from use in Christian worship because of its use in pagan ceremonies.  Once pagan religions disappeared due to the rise of Christianity, incense was introduced into Christian liturgy.  Historical records report that already in 390 A.D. incense was carried in at the Sunday Liturgy in Jerusalem so that the Church of the Resurrection was completely filled with its perfume.

Incense became an expression of our faith – a symbol of lifting our hearts to God in prayer and the elevation of our spirits to God in worship.  In the Book of Revelation, incense bowls represented the saints’ prayers standing before God and the Lamb.  

By the 9th century, incense was definitely used at the beginning of Mass.  By the later Middle Ages (14th - 15th centuries), the deacon began to incense the priest.  Following the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Mass called for incensing the altar cross and the relics embedded in the altar.

Incense became a sign of honor.  Eventually sacred objects like the Blessed Sacrament, statues and the Gospel Book were incensed.  This then was extended to the entire people who are temples of God’s Spirit.  Thus the body of a Christian is incensed during the funeral Mass as a sign of our great reverence for that person as a temple of God’s Spirit, a sign of our prayers for the deceased rising to heaven, and a sign of the resurrection of the body.

I doubt if this article will stop the coughing or if you will enjoy the “sweet odor” of incense, but hopefully it sheds light on how incense came to be used in the liturgy and its meaning today.