I get the feeling that once a priest has actually seen an allergic reaction, with the closed-up throat and strangulation, and especially if the victim is a child–this will knock the priest off his feet, scare him to death, and cause him to never, ever want to see this awful thing happen again.
The problem is, you never know. A few months ago, when I woke up in the middle of the night with my tongue so swollen that I couldn’t swallow–I had no idea what was happening and when I read “EMERGENCY–SEEK MEDICAL INTERVENTION IMMEDIATELY!” on Google, and read that the tongue and throat could continue to swell until I couldn’t breathe–wow, I was scared! Yes, I woke my husband up (at 2 in the morning), and we dashed to the ER, and sure enough, within a minute, I was rushed back to a room and given IV meds. The few times I’ve ever been to the ER, I have sat for over an hour in the waiting room–but NOT this time! I was overwhelmed by the speed of my treatment, which told me that I was in a dangerous and life-threatening condition.
I wasn’t allergic to anything except strawberries, and those cause me to break out in horrific hives, and so for years, I have avoided any contact with strawberries, even strawberry-flavored candies!
This allergic reaction happened out of the BLUE! I was thrown for a loop by this. Never expected it.
And I’m guessing that this happens with incense, too. A person will be at Mass enjoying the liturgy and enthusiastically joining their prayer with the priest’s prayer and loving the incense and all the great traditions, and then all of a sudden, they start feeling kind of strange and then the throat starts to tickle a little, and they get mad at themselves for getting choked up over a little bit of incense. But it gets worse and the person starts choking a little, leaves the Mass to go get a drink, but by the time they reach the drinking fountain, their throat has started to close up and they’re droolling all over their dressy outfit. And next thing they know, they’re being rushed to the ER and they have an IV sticking out their arm and the doctor is telling them that they need to avoid whatever triggered the allergic reaction because the NEXT time, it will be worse and they could die.
This is really really scary stuff. I’m betting that when this happens, priests shake their heads and say, “Hey, incense is optional, so why take a chance?”
I know it sounds so silly to some people who ask, “How is it that we were able to use incense for years and all of a sudden, people are choking to death and dying?”
Well, it’s a very different world. We have a lot of things now that we didn’t have even ten years ago, let alone 50 years ago. A lot of the foods we eat would be unrecognizable as food by our grandmas. Our entertainment is different. Our medical treatments are different, and most of us are vaccinated from our babyhood, and we routinely take meds for colds and flu that didn’t even exist 50 years ago. Some of the viruses that we are routinlely exposed to were extremely rare 50 years ago. Many people spend 13-20 hours a week online, and many of us spend more than 12 hours a day in front of a computer screen. The very air we breathe is different. Many of us spend little time outside, other than walking to our cars, and we avoid the sun like it was a monster.
Who knows which chemical or activity has rendered us overly-sensitive to various allergens and less resistant to various pathologies?
It’s really too bad, and I sympathize with those who love incense. It’s a shame that we all have to be so limited by our modern circumstances.
