Incense

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SMHW:
Our church uses incence on special occasions.

While I do like the idea of incense and I enjoy the fragrance, it doesn’t seem to like me in return. I sing in the choir and most of us have difficulty singing when it is used. We do use the non-allergenic variety which helps a great deal, but that doesn’t prevent some initial coughing.
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Ask your choir director to find out what kind of incense is being used. The really cheap ones are more smoke than fragrance. The better ones are not so offensive to the vocal chords!
 
I would like to note that the use of incense is a favorite object of attack by my Protestant family members. Catholics that oppose Incense (other than for allergy reasons) IMHO are essentially Protestantized. To My Protestant Family Incense was a symbol of prayer in the O.T and now we just pray to God directly as individuals.

I could not help but marvel two weeks ago when I was at High Mass of Tridentine service to notice (for the first time for me) Ps 140:2 quoted in my missal (As I read during Mass) . And my Protestant family thought the Church was ignorant of this Psalm ?
 
I voted “Yes, all the time.” The church I attend most of the time while at home, a Ruthenian church, uses it all the time. The church I attend at school, a Newman Center, uses it on major days, especially during Holy Week. My “home” parish never uses it, ever. Well, they did once last Christmas but that’s it. 😦
 
The only time I see incense used is Palm Sunday and at funerals. No other times 😦
 
Actually in our parish its up to the priest at the Mass. Two years ago we had a priest who love to use incense at almost every mass.Now its only on holy days.
 
At our Church it seems the Priest uses incense on Holy Days, Funerals, Confirmations and a few other occasions.

Don’t forget incense is a powerful symbol in the Catholic Church …when the incense is burned it is a symbol of the people’s prayers rising to God. Also at a recent funeral mass a Priest explained … God is invisible to us but as the smoke spreads out throughout the Church and we see it, we can visualize God as being everywhere!
 
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MaryAgnes:
Ask your choir director to find out what kind of incense is being used. The really cheap ones are more smoke than fragrance. The better ones are not so offensive to the vocal chords!
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I’m fairly certain we are using a good quality non-allergenic incense already. I know that the pastor is allergic and the person who researched incense types is a singer.

I admit we choir members tend to be ultra-sensitive to scents. The usual rule is no perfumes, colognes, or scented deoderants. So when we do encounter a fragrance, no matter how pleasant, we can be taken aback.

It’s just that the thurifer walks right in front of the choir ( we are not far from the ambo) with the censer and swings it a few times so we get a big dose of it. But it’s usually just a momentary thing. A few coughs and everyone recovers. The choir director makes sure the stand for the censer is in another part of the church. Also, one of the team members who trains the altar servers sings in the choir (the usual thurifer is her son) so our choir is as well looked after as it can be.
 
Weekly high Mass for us and Thursday Benediction…the more the better. I want a cloudy Sanctuary!
 
At my regular Parish they use incense at the 10:45 AM Mass. However I am not sure if they don’t use it during the summer because I went to that Mass some years ago and they said they won’t use it till the choir is back which is after summer. However I haven’t been to that Mass in a long time and so I just said every Sunday. Now when I attend the TLM they use incense just about every Sunday but there have been times where it was not used but that hasn’t happened in a long time.
 
At our parish we sometimes have low mass on Sundays especially when a priest has to travel on Sundays and doesnt stay overnight so we dont have incense ever Sunday. Now if I was in the city samething except if there is more than one priest there on that Sunday then we have high mass with incense. 🙂 RC Tradi
 
Our former parish used it on all solemnities. Our current parish next to never.

Doesn’t bother me either way, although I think it can go overboard.
 
Starting this Fall we will have one Mass a week that will always use incense.
 
My former day-time parish (near where I used to work) used incense all the time. Especially for holy hours, when the priest would set the Host in the Monstrance after the morning Mass. I loved that smell. Took me back to when I was a kid…

At my home parish, Masses are crowded and are about as close together as can be managed to get people out from one Mass and in for the next. One of the previous pastors spent a lot of time working with the parishioners to see how he could accommodate more Masses. You had to cut down the time for each Mass. It’s a big parish with thousands of parishioners. It’s a very active parish, with must be a hundred groups meeting. We’ve worn out the meeting rooms. And we have Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. Daily Masses begin at 6:30 in the morning. At ten at night things are still going on. On Sunday, we have Masses pretty much all day. So we have two chapels and the main church. There are constant weddings and funerals. Our parish church is a real center of our community. Someone said he sees the pastor in church at 4 in the morning – it’s apparently the only time he has to say his breviary and pray by himself.
 
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