Reflection This Week
INCENSE

   Ask a wag and he will tell you with a smile/smirk on his face that Episcopalianism is simply “Catholic Lite” or “Catholicism without the Guilt”. Of course there are Episcopalians who will not only agree but also go one step further and assert that we are too lite, that almost anything, if not everything, goes. There are even those among us who hold that guilt is good, at least a modicum of it.

   On the other hand, there are some among us whose spiritual bent is more Catholic than some Catholics I know. Drive a hundred miles east into Illinois and you will wind up in what used to be called “The Biretta Belt”, that part of the Episcopal Church whose liturgical life and even, some would say, take on authority, could out-Pope the Pope. It was, and still is in some places, High Church to the nth degree: “smells and bells”, copes, birettas (those three-point funny hats that priests wear – and some still do), daily “mass” confession and so on.

   Then there are those brought up in the Morning Prayer Tradition where the Eucharist was celebrated once a month at the main service and in some places only once a quarter (the early service, however, was always the Eucharist). Those were/are the Low Church crowd. When the 1979 Book of Common Prayer became our standard of worship and the Eucharist became “the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day” (p. 13), the divide between High Church and Low Church began to close. In fact, after almost 30 years, those distinctions are hardly even made.

   The one remnant that remains a very touchy issues is not that of vestments or the importance of Morning Prayer (I have always maintained what those who say they miss Morning Prayer are talking about is that they miss the canticles, which are truly beautiful pieces of worshipful music. What I miss about my RC seminary days is all the Gregorian Chant.) Rather what seems to separate one “side” from the other is that of incense. Many a priest and many a warden have been bloodied over that issue.

   Incense, more that anything else, is a gut issue. We either love it or we hate it. There seems to be no middle ground. A friend of mine was the thurifer (the one who carries the thurible [the smoking pot of incense] in procession and throughout the service) at the funeral of his longtime former Rector. After the service, someone came up to him and reamed him up one side and down the other because the smoke and the smell made her so sick. He smiled but did not have the heart to tell her that there was no smoke or smell because they could not get the charcoal (which burns the incense that produces the smoke and the smell) lit.

   Is it all in the head? Do those who detest incense do so because it is simply “too Catholic” or because they are truly allergic to the smell? The incense today is now hypoallergenic and the smell dissipates rapidly.  Actually, incense is not so much Catholic as it is part of our Jewish roots, a symbol of our prayers ascending to God and a way of making our worship more ethereal and spiritual – at least for those for whom incense has a profound meaning and which they miss in their worship.

   I bring up this touchy subject because there are many among us who keep asking that we use incense on occasion. Our Worship Committee will be considering it. Your thoughts, concerns, opinions are most welcomed.   WJP