Home Altars and Incense

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Little_Mac

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I know many Catholics have in their homes a small home altar set up, often with crucifixes, candles, statuettes, and incense burners. But my question is, since the Old Testament specifically forbids the use of incense to worship outside of the use of priests, (as seen in many OT stories) why would us Christians employ such means of worship in our homes? Shouldn’t this be against Catholic teaching rather than encouraged?

This is a bit of an off-beat subject, but it’s something that for whatever reason I’ve been pondering for some time. Thank you for your time.
 
Little_Mac said:
I know many Catholics have in their homes a small home altar set up, often with crucifixes, candles, statuettes, and incense burners. But my question is, since the Old Testament specifically forbids the use of incense to worship outside of the use of priests, (as seen in many OT stories) why would us Christians employ such means of worship in our homes? Shouldn’t this be against Catholic teaching rather than encouraged?

This is a bit of an off-beat subject, but it’s something that for whatever reason I’ve been pondering for some time. Thank you for your time.
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The number of Catholic priests who meet the requirements set forth for the Levitical priesthood is vanishingly small (considering how few Catholics are even ethnically Jewish).

Thankfully, they are not required to conform to those requirements in like manner to the fact that all Catholics are not required to conform to the dietary laws.

Since the Church has not established a similar law regarding use of incense, laypersons may use it in their private devotions.
 
The religious rules of Judaism in the Old Testament were abrogated by The New Covenant with the Crucifixion of our Lord.
That being said, you can burn all the incense you want, paying attention, of course, to the complaints of your family and from the neighbors!
Please bear in mind that what smells wonderful in the large areas of a Church, can gas you out of the house!
 
George_Stegmeir said:
The religious rules of Judaism in the Old Testament were abrogated by The New Covenant with the Crucifixion of our Lord.
That being said, you can burn all the incense you want, paying attention, of course, to the complaints of your family and from the neighbors!
Please bear in mind that what smells wonderful in the large areas of a Church, can gas you out of the house!
Click to expand...
:rotfl: Or from the Fire Department when they find out you are burning incense and not the house down! 😃
 
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