Do you regularly burn incense?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Madaglan
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Madaglan said:
Do you regularly burn incense?
Click to expand...
No. My husband would have a fit. Even scented candles choke him up. And I’m not really all that fond of incense, except in Church, if they don’t overdo it.
 
Yes - but mostly in the summer when the windows are open. We are in a tiny house and sometimes it gets to be too much with the windows closed, and I don’t mind the neighbors smelling it either and wondering what the crazy Catholics are up to now! 😃

EDIT: We are major smells and bells types. I remember one of the very first times DH and I went to Mass together before we were married. The incense wafted in a huge cloud near us and both of us took and enormous SNIIIIIIFFFFFFFF and lovely sigh!! 😃 😃 We both looked at each other and just giggled - yep, we were meant to be. 😉

~Liza
 
nope, asthmatic. I do not burn candles in the house, either, for the same reason, and I do not use air fresheners, plug-ins, sprays etc., and I use fragrance free detergents, cleansers and toiletries. a friend brought a bowl of pot pouri for Christmas and I had to toss it the next day.
 
When my apartment stinks, like if I burn something, I do. I occasionally will burn some just for fun- but it’s not church incense.
 
Definitely. I despise air fresheners and sprays – so to get rid of bad smellies, esp in the bathroom, we used to burn incense. Not so much any more: the walls and ceiling started to get very sooty (there’s no fan in the bathroom and the ceiling vent does not have much pull).

My fave incense is church incense, definitely.

I also like cinnamon, vanilla (good quality; cheap vanilla incense smells like melting plastic), and sandalwood. I’m not a big fan of patchouli. I like the warm, dark, spicy scents; not so much the lighter, cooler scents; florals not at all; and some of the perfumey ones are downright gross.
 
:confused:

Do you actually use incensers? I was looking at a Catholic catalog last night with the wife and got a kick out of seeing them for sale for laypeople. It brought me back to my altar boy days.

:highprayer:
 
How long does it take for the walls to become sooty? I’ve been burning incense daily for about the past 2-3 weeks.
 
idrum677 said:
:confused:

Do you actually use incensers? I was looking at a Catholic catalog last night with the wife and got a kick out of seeing them for sale for laypeople. It brought me back to my altar boy days.

:highprayer:
Click to expand...
I don’t have an actual thurible yet but have one picked out to order soon. I already have a stand to hold the thurible (kadilo in the East), made from a floor lamp. My older son will be the one to cense during our prayers.

We burn regular church incense. I have burned the other kind before but now I think it smells like you’re trying to cover up something - church incense just smells like prayer to me.
 
I’ve tried the charcoal kind - you heat up the round brick and then put on the powdered resin (frankinsence, myrrh, sandalwood, etc.) and really enjoy it. I have to move it from room to room, though, else I may get “smoked out.” I don’t use a real thurible, but something like this. (No, I don’t endorse the link, I found the image through Google pictures.)

But lately we’ve been using inexpensive sticks in the Asian holder outside – especially on Sundays and Holy days:

 
Miserissima said:
I’ve tried the charcoal kind - you heat up the round brick and then put on the powdered resin (frankinsence, myrrh, sandalwood, etc.) and really enjoy it. I have to move it from room to room, though, else I may get “smoked out.” I don’t use a real thurible, but something like this. (No, I don’t endorse the link, I found the image through Google pictures.)

But lately we’ve been using inexpensive sticks in the Asian holder outside – especially on Sundays and Holy days:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c46/miserissima/censer.jpg
Click to expand...
My dad gave me some of the resin kind that you burn in a censer,but i have a really hard time getting it to stay lit and burn though.I love the smell!
 
I wish I could, but the dorms don’t allow it and it’s too expensive for my college budget. That’s why I use this deacon smiley in my signature: :highprayer: . I figure better fake incense than none at all!!

I count my morning and evening prayers as incense though. "Let my prayer be sent for as incense…"ect.

We should be careful thought not to become like the Israelites who got so carried away with the incense offerings that their hearts weren’t in it. Just the smoke, so God was kinda choked 👍 😃
 
Madaglan said:
How long does it take for the walls to become sooty? I’ve been burning incense daily for about the past 2-3 weeks.
Click to expand...
I helped a friend clean her apartment for a move, she had burned incense daily for a year.

We had to scrub the walls, closets, and ceilings. The incense smoke had adhered to the surfaces, when she removed the pictures/knickknacks, you could see the outline of the stuff that had been there.

It was a mess! Thank heavens for TSP. 👍

Asia
 
scapularkid8 said:
I REALLY like that idea!! I never thought Catholics were allowed to use that “stick” incense…It just never seemed proper to me since what we offer in Church are the actual organic saps, herbs, and minerals…🤷
Click to expand...
I didn’t either, until…

I went to a Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year) celebration and it was begun with a Mass. One of the celebrants processed in with…incense sticks! After they were lit, the priest bowed three times before the altar and put them in an ornate brass bowl-shaped holder…

I think it may hearken to the days when the Vietnamese people were mostly Buddhist but that’s just a guess.

Here is an awesome picture hosted at webshots (not mine) that shows the bowl-type incense holder at the bottom of the chapel altar that holds the sticks. It’s the same kind I saw at the Tet Mass.

I wasn’t lucky enough to go to the first Mass of the Chapel of Our Lady of La Vang at the National Basilica, but I’ve seen pictures where the incense was burned there at that first Mass.

I’m sure that the incense has to be made of the finest materials for Mass, (not the over-the-counter drustore variety). It should be made of the right resins mixed with the charcoal, to create the same quality as if it were the resins being placed ON a piece of charoal.
My dad gave me some of the resin kind that you burn in a censer,but i have a really hard time getting it to stay lit and burn though.I love the smell! - sawman
Click to expand...
I don’t mean to come in here knowing all things incense, but let me offer what I know…

It depends first on the type of censer you’re using. If its made of all brass, that may transfer a lot of the heat away from the charcoal. You could try to put art sand or an aluminum disk in the bottom of the censer to see if that might help. Or, use a censer that has a screen to allow air UNDER the charcoal, and a place for the ash to fall, like this one.

Second, I light my charcoal over a flame by holding it with tongs. This allows the top portion to become all red, evenly, not just the corners. Make sure you get the top part as red as you can, as evenly red as you can. (Many quick lite charcoals fizzle quickly without lighting all the way through.) Then I place the charcoal in the censer.

Now, here’s the difficult part: you need to wait until there is a thin coating of white/grey ash on the top. That means the outer layer is burned off and the fire/heat is inside where it needs to be.

Finally, if you’re using resin incense, make sure to grind it into a powder. If you use the actual resin globs, they will melt on top and suffocate the charcoal. The powder will diffuse into a wonderful smoke that will last a very long time. You may even add more, if you want.

You may find that the charcoal will burn longer than you want the incense to smoke, so be sure to drop your charcoal into sink and let water run over it for a while until you’re SURE the embers are out. Even after you do this, please do not put the charcoal into the trash. Bury it or put it in a sand bucket, just in case it’s not all out.

And that’s more than anyone needs to know about charcoal incense…
 
Not yet…I’m sure we’ll get there eventually, though. Once I get the courage to ask Father the type used at our church. And find a censer. I love it–it smells like Ivory Soap at first, then spicy. Way better than a Yankee candle! 😃
 
I tend to burn incense cones now and they seem to last longer than incense sticks. I use to burn church incense with the charcoal but I was always leary of the sparks and how super hot the censer got, so no more church incense for me.

I wish there was something like the oil stone burners where you place a tea light under the burner and it heats up the oil, this would be a great alternative to the charcoal in that all is needed is the tealight candles heat to make the incense smoke. Oh well, I can dream. :rolleyes:

I do experiment with sprinkling some church incense around the incense cone and as the censer heats up the church incense does give off some fragrance but no smoke. 🤷

Peace.
 
Originally Posted by PazFeAmor:
Click to expand...
I do experiment with sprinkling some church incense around the incense cone and as the censer heats up the church incense does give off some fragrance but no smoke. 🤷
Click to expand...
Peace.
Click to expand...
It may be an issue of temperature. When I burn incense, there is always one ingredient that never burns and remains on the charcoal afterwards.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top