Wafting of fabric over the gifts?

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CastingCrown

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In the Byzantine Rite I’ve seen a piece of fabric (I think it was covering the gifts) is “wafted” over the gifts (in the same way you would coax a fire) during the creed. What’s that all about? 🙂
 
A priest told me that historically it was to keep flies away from the bread and wine but now it has a liturgical meaning, I just can’t seem to recall what the liturgical meaning is. And yes, there are two fabrics that are waved (at least this is what is done in my parish). The first piece of fabric is the one that was formerly covering the bread and I’m pretty sure in the Slavic tradition (maybe the Greek too, not sure) the priest only waves it 14 times over the bread and wine to symbolize the 14 points of the creed. Then the priest takes the fabric that was formerly covering the wine and waves that over the gifts as well.
 
The cloth is called the aer . You can see an explanation here page 436. of the symbolism, also here and here.

We usually have two, or sometimes three, priests con-celebrating and they hold it and wave it together. 🙂

We also ring the bells outside during this. 👍
 
So it symbolizes:
  • Statements of faith in the creed
  • The earthquake at the resurrection
  • Descent of the Holy Spirit
When I first saw it the image came to my mind of the wafting of incense towards heaven 🙂
 
5Loaves said:
The cloth is called the aer . You can see an explanation here page 436. of the symbolism, also here and here.

We usually have two, or sometimes three, priests con-celebrating and they hold it and wave it together. 🙂

We also ring the bells outside during this. 👍
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The most interesting part is if a Bishop and two priests (or other Bishops) are there, the main celebrant (the most senior bishop) would bow down his head on top of the gifts and the aer is waved over his head.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR88-Y1ZIWlLfvUXMhxj3YxtJSxTZ_JkxEGgNzIfeI6rON0rHHb
 
CastingCrown said:
Where do you think this fits in with the symbolism?
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There is also the tradition of the deacon fanning the gifts with one of the small veils during the anaphora. It is thought that it originally came from keeping flys off the gifts…then came to symbolize the moving of the Holy Spirit.
 
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