Anglicanism & incense

I think ours uses it occasionally. Its near-constant use is one of the things I miss about the Orthodox liturgy. Having that scent be the first thing you sense when you walk in the door for Sunday Vespers really sets the mood and tone for the whole Service.

 

I looked over this thread. Some people are vehemently opposed to it odd. I see nothing wrong with it. It is a ceremony. Some come and some go.

 

In the Continuing churches incense is standard, even sometimes in places where the facility doesn't really have the ceiling or ventilation for it. The exception would be rentals or the occassional low church parish.

I have a censer and a big sack of 'Jerusalem' incense. Jerusalem is a cedar base perfumed with myrrh. Other popular blends are 'Queen of Heaven', 'Pontifical', or pure frankincense or myrrh. My Archbishop's chapel always has some scent of Queen of Heaven hanging about.

Censing the altar is a lot easier with an Eastward facing altar. A free standing altar requires the thurifer to double his movements.

 

We don't use incense at the church I attend, but I have nothing against it. At home there is incense going on a daily basis...my wife is Buddhist, and it is part of her daily worship.

 

Interesting! That's not something you hear every day.

 

My wife, too, is raised a Buddhist. She is baptized and confirmed, yet she goes to a local temple three days per week to feed the monks. She treats it as a social-event, as it is by many there. Many of the women have husbands whose families are Christian and they attend church and function as members, but still retain ties to their past by their feeding the monks. I studied Buddhism for twenty-years and stayed at temples for retreats. I consider myself no less a Christian for doing so. Actually, such an experience made me a better Christian.

 

Maybe the Early Church did things that we don't do today - and the other way round.
I think we do not have to copy anytthing the Early Church did 100 percent.

 

I am surprised by that. I understood the early church 'borrowed' much from Judaism. The Jews used incense.

 

We should remember that by the time of the New Testament, the Mosaic priesthood was far in decay. The priests simply don't play a very large role in the affair surrounding Christ's ministry. It is always the rabbis who are the biggest characters in the NT story, from that lay spiritual movement emerging after the return from Babylon. Increasingly throughout the end of the Old Testament, the rabbinical movement is in tension and contest with the actual Mosaic priests. By the NT times, it seems to almost completely eclipsed them. (And of course now, it is all there is.)

Furthermore, even if the Mosaic priesthood continued in the early NT times, the simple fact is that it ended forever in 70 AD. So after 70 AD, there disappeared the last place where worship of the one true God was associated with incense. The NT church, not connected to the Mosaic priesthood, never tried to compete with it, or present themselves as direct equivalents to it. You don't have NT presbyters walking around with incense, as if they are just like the Mosaic priests.

The OT priests were doing last Mosaic sacrifices in the Temple, and circumcising the flesh; but the NT presbyters were now sacrificing praise and thanksgiving, and circumcising the hearts. So you find in the Church Fathers a pretty strong rejection against incense; I remember reading them saying that as the pagan temples have rising the incense of smoke, so instead let the incense of the gospel rise in our hearts. Incense became strongly associated with unbelief and idolatry.

 

The formula for the incense used in church though should be different than that used in the home. Ex.30:37,
.

 

"5 Reasons to Burn Incense in Christian Worship" by Archbishop Thomas Gordon

 

Here's one article that's OK with incense - "The Prayers Rose Like Incense: Anglican Worship and the Normative Principle" by Rev. Matthew Kennedy. The title has a hyperlink to the article.

 

Incense an "abomination"?
I can't believe it.

 

First, let me be clear I have no objection to incense. I am Anglo-Catholic and we're all bells and smells.

I would like to ask how often your church uses it. I have always had the impression it is 'out of fashion' with many Catholics. I suspect my brand of Anglicanism uses it more.

 

how about holy water?

is it used in Anglican churches?

 

It is most assuredly used in the Anglican Catholic Church.

 

We have it in my Parish which is not very far up the candlestick.

 

Fine!

 

Fine!

 

The holy water is usually in a small reservoir right inside the door to the sanctuary. Or possibly the baptismal font will be open and filled with the holy water.