Why has the use of incense

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You tell me 6 Masses, 4 funerals on average and Benediction, every week.
Even if it is just $10 a week, that is $520 a year.
That may not seem like much, but when you’re running close to $10k in the red, 6 months into the fiscal year, you look for ways to save wherever you can.
 
I guess if things are that tight financially you have to look at things. Good luck for the future.
 
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twf said:
Every time incense comes up in a Latin context, we get a hoard of asthmatics declaring that their very life is on the line of incense is used. How does the East deal with this? It’s my experience that the typical Byzantine temple - Catholic or Orthodox - is a big perpetual cloud of incense :P.
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My daughter is steps out during the incensing of the whole church and frequently steps to the back during the liturgy
 
Iustinus1 said:
I’m not saying it isn’t bad.
Just saying if the Church has to choose between giving it the precious blood or using incense more at masses the latter should be chosen.
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I don’t think there is any reason that choosing one would have a thing to do with choosing the other. It’s not like there is simultaneous demands being made on the altar servers or something? Once a parish owns a thurible, they own it. Once they own extra chalices for distribution to the laity, they own them.

I guess offering under both species frequently does incur extra costs, since the extra chalices do have a lining that wears out from having contact with wine (which retains the physical accident of acting with acidity even after consecration) and there is wear and tear on a considerable number of purificators. (Trust me, lipstick stains are a problem that we don’t run into when laundering purificators used only by the clergy.) It is a matter that most parishes can manage, but I don’t think the expense of incense or the expense of offering under both kinds frequently are big-ticket items on most churches.
 
Our cathedral uses incense every Sunday. Not at every Mass but at least at a couple of them. My local parish uses incense on major feasts - so several times a year but not weekly.
 
Yes, unfortunately, my parish, and most of my diocese is struggling financially.
We will be closing another Catholic school in June of 2020 and it looking like at least 4 Churches will be closed.
My parish is a cluster of 3 churches, we will probably be closing 2 buildings within the next 5 years.
Please pray for us.
 
CilladeRoma said:
You tell me 6 Masses, 4 funerals on average and Benediction, every week.
Even if it is just $10 a week, that is $520 a year.
That may not seem like much, but when you’re running close to $10k in the red, 6 months into the fiscal year, you look for ways to save wherever you can.
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If a parish is big enough to need six weekend Masses and to be burying 4 people a week, there is a problem if they are running in the red. (The problem isn’t all the money the priest is blowing through on incense and charcoal briquettes, let’s just say that.)

There aren’t any Catholic schools closing due to over-spending on incense, either. (Not that I’m in the camp that would chalk the loss up to under-spending on incense, mind you…)
 
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No kidding.
But it is an expense, that could add up over the year. We have cut a lot of expenses.
Sadly, the next thing to be cut is staff.
Everyone is doing more, with much less.
Part of it is the failure of families to remain practicing, church going Catholics and part of it is people are leaving my area in droves. Once nearly 80% of the local population was Catholic, I think it is now aboit 40%
 
First, it depends on the church. Many churches use it regularly. At my local church, which is OF, I see incense about once a week at Benediction at the end of the weekly day of Eucharistic Adoration. At EF churches you will see it even more frequently.

Second, incense in general is used less frequently in OF churches than EF because incense just comes up less time.

Third, some priests may be cognizant of the fact that incense can cause some people to have an allergic or other bad reaction to the smoke and smell. It also requires some extra time and fuss and some priests would see it as an unnecessary distraction. And yes, it costs money too.
 
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CilladeRoma said:
No kidding.
But it is an expense, that could add up over the year. We have cut a lot of expenses.
Sadly, the next thing to be cut is staff.
Everyone is doing more, with much less.
Part of it is the failure of families to remain practicing, church going Catholics and part of it is people are leaving my area in droves. Once nearly 80% of the local population was Catholic, I think it is now aboit 40%
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Yes, if you choose to go to church primarily on a “hatch, match and dispatch” basis, as the old saying used to go, of course your support for the parish and for the parish school isn’t going to be what it would be for someone who is active in the parish. That still adds up to a lot of funerals.

Still, if the parish needs six Masses on a weekend, that is an enormous parish. That is a special challenge all of its own from just about every perspective. I don’t think we have a parish with that many Masses in our entire Archdiocese, and that counts the ones that offer Masses in three different languages (none of which is Latin, in most cases). How much incense and charcoal your parish uses or doesn’t hardly makes a pencil mark, one way or the other.
 
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PetraG said:
Still, if the parish needs six Masses on a weekend, that is an enormous parish.
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It’s normal around here. There are at least three parishes all within like 5-7 miles of each other here that all have thousands of families and 6 Masses per weekend. There are also at least 2 or 3 other parishes within the same radius that are slightly smaller and have maybe 4 Masses per weekend.

I doubt based on what I see going on with them that any of these parishes are in financial need, though. Most of the parishioners, with the exception being probably the Spanish-speaking immigrants, are well off.
 
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That is 6 Masses at 3 seperate churches.
My “parish” is a quasi-cluster of 3 city parishes. We have two churches that seat 550 and one that seats 850. Our average attendance, over 2 Masses at each building is about 400.
We are in the midst of a parish census. Going in, we had more at 1500 families registered between the 3 sites. After 6 weeks, our new census shows we have about 500 families across the 3 sites.
This is typical of the decline in my area. It is sad, and why incense isn’t on the radar of most people in my area.
 
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commenter said:
At a Newman Center back in the 1970s, an older nun would talk at length about how horrible the old Mass was. She lamented the “distractions” of stained glass images, statues, ringing of bells at the Consecration, incense , and so on. All this she claimed was a turnoff to modern young people.
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commenter said:
At a Newman Center back in the 1970s, an older nun would talk at length about how horrible the old Mass was. She lamented the “distractions” of stained glass images, statues, ringing of bells at the Consecration, incense , and so on. All this she claimed was a turnoff to modern young people.
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Presumably she has gone on to her heavenly reward so we don’t need to worry about her and the many of her generation who had these issues any more.

The kids today do seem to like the trad stuff quite a bit, which is normal because each generation tends to like whatever the older generation didn’t like.

I tend to think that the incense poses a special issue though because of people’s bad reactions to the smoke. We no longer live in a culture where virtually everyone smokes cigarettes or pipes and the non-smokers are expected to just put up with it. We also have a lot more people who speak up about their allergies or bad reactions to smoke or smells (like perfume). Churches are often not very well ventilated. The clergy, servers, lectors etc may be among those who have a hard time with the clouds of incense. I am not too worried that it will go away entirely as you’ll always be able to find a cathedral or traditional parish using it sometimes, but I don’t expect every church to be using it.
 
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Usige said:
I know a priest that put a small chunk of dry ice in the thurible instead of incense. There were still people that complained that the “smoke” and smell irritated them.
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That was not a prudent act considering the MSDS for dry ice .
 
I like the verse in the Book of Revelation about incense. It is pretty common in Heaven judging by verses like this

The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer

1 When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings,a flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.
 
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