Incense

“Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (Revelation 8:3-4).

We experience the world seen and unseen through our senses, to help us understand the nature or purpose of a thing. With incense, which engages our senses of sight and smell, we can come to better understand its purpose of reverence and prayer, as described in Sacred Scripture. The use of incense was a practice instituted by God himself. He commanded Moses, “You shall make an altar on which to offer incense; Aaron shall offer fragrant incense on it” every morning and evening (Exodus 30:7-8). That altar was placed before the Ark of the Covenant. Fast-forward to the Book of Malachi, the last prophet in the Old Testament, where we read (1:11), “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering.” And in the story of Christmas, two of the gifts the Magi brought to the Child Jesus were frankincense and myrrh. Today, including at OLMC, the same incense is obtained from two resinous trees in the Middle East (sometimes complemented with added scents, such as rose and florals).

With all of this biblical background in mind, it seems clear that the use of incense in the Catholic liturgy is not some puzzling anomaly or outdated medieval relic, but an ancient and venerable tradition that goes all the way back to the Old Testament. For this reason alone, we should strive to cultivate an appreciation for its use in the Mass today, especially in the dual incensation rites of the liturgy of the Word (the Book of the Gospels) and the liturgy of the Eucharist (the offerings, cross, altar, priest, and people).

Moreover, as the Book of Revelation in the New Testament shows, the prayers of the saints on earth continue to rise up like incense before the heavenly altar of incense. According to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, there is a correlation between the earthly and heavenly liturgies: “In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy… where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God…” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 8). If the earthly Mass is a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy, then it is certainly fitting that we should use incense in the earthly celebration of the Eucharist. This would also help remind us that the liturgy is not just a rite or ritual, but, in its deepest mystery, the prayer of Christ and his Church.