Like Rising Incense

When I was little, I hated when incense was used at Mass. Not only did it make me cough and sneeze, it made it really hard to see what was going on. Now, incense is by far one of my favorite sacramentals used in the Church as I can’t help but feel my heart and soul fly closer to God whenever I catch its scent. This makes sense because a sacramental is supposed to be an outward sign of an inward reality.
  
The purpose of incense is to physically represent the spiritual realities surrounding prayer. In Psalm 141, King David desires that his “prayers rise like incense” before God. Prayer is the lifting of our hearts and souls to God, so when incense is utilized in the Mass or Eucharistic Adoration, we are reminded of our rising prayers. As we watch the smoke disappear into the recesses of the Church’s ceiling, we are encouraged to send our prayers to God.
  
In medieval times, incense was also used to cover up the smells of the peasants who would come in for Mass. While we shouldn’t overlook this practicality, there is always a deeper theological meaning to the Liturgy. It’s no secret that our lives are messy; our weeks are full of hard work, stress, and temptation, and sometimes we can be distracted by it all at Mass, which makes us feel that we’re not offering our best to God. The incense, which covers everything in its sweet scent, reminds us that, through our participation in the Mass, our small and meager offerings of prayer are transformed and made sweet and presentable to God.
 
Here at St. John Paul II Seminary, we love our incense. We have two different types that we use on a regular basis. The weekday incense is called “Jerusalem” and it has a light smell that doesn’t smoke too much but still serves as a great reminder of our prayers in Adoration. The incense we use on Sundays and Feasts, on the other hand, is a blend of two different types of incense: one, called Laudate, enhances the smell and the other increases the amount of smoke.
 
Some days, we get the perfect incense-to-charcoal ratio that fills the entire Chapel with smoke that begins to pour out into the hallway, even finding its way up the stairs to the residential floors. Since we use incense practically every day, the sweet scent seems to have embedded itself in the walls so that, throughout the day, we can catch a whiff of lingering incense which raises our souls to God, reminding us that every minute of our life can be a prayer if offered to God.
 
Mr. Moore is a College III seminarian for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.