Mass readings for the 1st Sunday of Advent:
Jeremiah 33.14-16 Psalm 25.4-5, 8-10, 14 1 Thessalonians 3.12-4.2 Luke 21.25-28, 34-36
You will have noted how mass began with the use of incense. It’s a very traditional catholic practice, but one I thought to modify as we reintroduce it to parish worship from time to time (we already use it at funerals, and at Wednesday adoration). Scent sensitivity is a real thing, and so, it won’t be carried through the congregation, and it will be used sparingly. I find it irritating to my throat and sinuses, and I have memories of my days as an altar boy when over exuberant clergy would send up clouds of it leaving me choking and wheezing, the little asthmatic boy that I was.
There is in its use the idea that the enshrouding smoke deepens the sense of mystery, but I would hope that by our spiritual sight, a bit of smoke and a whiff of incense will suffice for us to know that something is going on here as we open the season of Advent.
Incense was the ancient world’s air freshener. Used in royal palaces and the homes of the wealthy, it covered the unpleasant smells that wafted in the streets of ancient cities. It was also considered a pleasant indulgence even when it wasn’t strictly necessary; it was a signifier of wealth and power because it was expensive. So, used in a religious context there is the idea that one honours one’s gods by burning one’s money up in a fragrant sacrifice. Spend a hundred dollars on an ounce of frankincense, and then have the priest immolate it in a few seconds, the smoke communicates to the divine realm profound love and respect. It was a form of prayer in itself, and the psalms tell us that sincere prayer is as precious as an incense offering. “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you…” (Psalm 141.12)
Incense was also an antiseptic; a way to purify the atmosphere of a place. And that would be particularly apt for a religious sanctuary. It might seem odd to think of smoke as cleansing, but that was the understanding of humanity right up to the modern era. There was a belief that disease could travel through the air – and how right they were as we have come to know from the rise of influenza in the past century as a common and deadly infection. Now, for our ancient and medieval forebears, the airborne disease was most evident in odours, putrid and sickening smells. To incense an altar, or a person, was to chase off anything malodorous and make the place of offering and the people making the offering safe and acceptable to the divinity; that the god or gods invoked could then descend and be present without being offended by the stench of worshippers. So, in this there is another precept that the divine and the good cannot reside in pollution. And by the way, that word “pollution” was not coined by the environmental movement, but was purloined by them from the vocabulary of western spirituality. Pollution originally did not refer to chemical effluent being poured into lakes and rivers, but was about spiritual corruption. To “pollute” is to defile, to corrupt, to desecrate, to profane the holy.
It might occur to some to say, “that’s all well and good, but surely this isn’t Lent, this isn’t a time of personal introspection and penance.” And they would be correct. But the liturgical direction of the Church seems to present this as a “little Lent.”
We have no flowers in the church, just greenery. The music is now spare, with silences where once we had something beautiful to listen to while the priest and servers go about cleaning up and clearing the altar after communion. Why are things diminished a little and we now have a more serious tone in our worship? Aren’t we supposed to be all excited that Christmas is coming?
In the liturgical manual entitled, “Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year according to the Modern Roman Rite” that which, we hope and trust, guides the decisions of all our clergy in leading worship, it says,
“The season with which the liturgical year begins is not penitential. Advent is a time of preparation and reflection, hope and anticipation.”
I doubt the average mass-goer has read this; for many the season is about remembering the coming of Jesus, and Christmas Day is a celebration recalling the time and circumstances of his birth. But Advent and Christmas aren’t just about that look back into history. The gospel today is a prophecy of things to come, and the end that is to come. Advent is a reminder, a sober reminder for some, a happy one for others, that the King shall indeed come, and we must ask ourselves, are we ready? And like householders who learn that a person of great eminence is paying a visit, we do our best to straighten up the place, air it out, make it acceptable even as we acknowledge we’re not quite ready to receive our Lord – it’s like that old joke about the Pope being told by one of his staff that Jesus has indeed come back and is walking toward St. Peter’s basilica, “Holy Father, what should we do?” and the Pope responds, “look busy.”
I’ve been speaking of late about the Forward Together in Christ initiative of the diocese, we’ve also been educating ourselves with respect to parish stewardship, and soon, I think next week there will be another information drop in the form of a newsletter. Underlying both of these is the sense that we’ve not been attentive enough to the spiritual state of our lives as a community called to be stewards of faith, witnesses to hope and servants of charity; and that the results of an inadvertent negligence are becoming apparent. These have accumulated over decades. We might protest and point to all the conferences and seminars, all the changes and experimentation with respect to worship, to religious education, all the real sacrifices of time, talent and treasure we have made, and ask, well what was that then? That was hardly inattentiveness.
It’s been hard for me to come to this point in my life and look at the state of Christianity, of the Christian people, and admit that for whatever I have been up to, what so many have been doing, the situation did not improve but worsened. How hard it is to look back at some of the things I participated in with the best of intentions, with the encouragement of leadership, with experts assuring us of success because they’d done the studies, the focus groups, etc. to have it all come to nothing and be baffled by the results.
I’m sure we all know about the smells we become accustomed to; everybody’s home has its own fragrance, shall we say. You know this in visiting other people at home. Now, usually pleasant or inoffensive, but sometimes… But its really hard to detect your own. So, when company’s coming, we might get out the Febreze, and those scented candles we got last Christmas and fire them up – not only festive, but might dispel something untoward.
Speaking of odours that we need to dispel and chase away, there is in our secular culture quite a lot of what I would call spiritual flatulence that pollutes our thinking, and that we’ve become too accustomed to, that many even prefer. Pope Paul VI in his private writing spoke of the “smoke of Satan” invading the Church, and it’s fair to say that we often allow to drift into the Church some pretty off-putting things that in the moment we think are just what is needed. For those trying to escape it though, to find it here is off-putting, it’s off-putting to the Holy Spirit to encounter pollution we’ve grown insensitive to. And this should all bring us to recognize we don’t always detect the satanic smoke, or the demonic stink. And so, in this season, we’re taking precautions, not just in offering a pinch of incense, but in readying our homes and ourselves with a true preparation for Christmas that does not pre-empt the day, but makes us through our anticipation of it, all the more conscious of our need of Christ for it is only he who can purify us, make us fragrant with holiness.
We not only remember his first coming, but desire that he come again: not only enter the spirit of the season, but open ourselves to the Holy Spirit sent to guide, instruct, and comfort us; and not refuse him because of what it might mean in terms of a sacrifice we fear we can’t find in ourselves to make. It’s in that sacrifice prompted by God’s spirit that we will be freed from our worries, and kept from the dissipation and drunkenness our Lord warns us against. We will be made alert and ready, and far more excited than ever we were as children at the thought of Christmas morning.
Amen.