At Good Shepherd Anglican we take the public worship of God seriously. By God's grace, we seek to preserve the ancient traditions in worship carried down to us from the Apostles and preserved by the church throughout history.
In our worship we use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which was edited to preserve the 1549 and 1662 Books of Common Prayer.
The 1928 Book of Common Prayer is grounded in scripture; it guides us in daily and weekly readings of the entire Bible, with special attention given to the Psalms, Gospels, and Epistles. The prayers are biblically based and have been tested against God's word by men of God throughout the history of the church.
By using a Book of Common Prayer, our congregation incorporates the entirety of God's Word into our corporate worship, and seeks unity in worship in accordance with Scripture.
During our liturgy we implement candles, incense, vestry garments and the use of many different symbols and icons. There is a deep theological intentionality and historic precedent behind all of the elements incorporated in our public worship, as every symbol and moment is meant to point the congregant to the glorious awesomeness of our Sovereign God.
For more info, see the article below by Fr. Homer F. Rogers, Why is Incense Used?.
Why is Incense Used?
So burning incense in the presence of someone very important came to be regarded as a mark of honor and respect. Royalty and the aristocracy had incense burned before them on all public occasions. If you wished to honor a friend, you burned incense when he visited you.
Incense was burned in temples and all places of public and private worship in honor of the God who was to visit the temple. It purified the place in anticipation of his visit. The Jews did this, and the Christians took over the custom. “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered in my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of Hosts.” Malachi 1:11
It is instructive to notice the places in the church service at which incense is offered. On the entrance into the sanctuary at the beginning of the Mass the priest “censes” the altar to prepare it for the coming of God on the altar. Then he himself is “censed” by the deacon or thurifer, because the priest himself is to become an instrument through which God acts in the service.
The bread and wine are “censed” at the offertory, because God is going to visit them and make them His habitation. Then the congregation is “censed”, for they are going to receive their communion – God is going to visit them. They further are due honor in their own right as the Mystical Body of Christ through which (with the priest) God acts to consecrate the Holy Sacrifice.
At the moment of Consecration the bread and wine (becoming the Body and Blood of Christ) are again “censed” by the thurifer, because God becomes present there.
God is really acting through His priests; God is really present on our altars under the forms of bread and wine; God is really speaking to us through the reading of the Gospel, and finally God is really and actually present in the Christian who receives the Sacraments or hears His Word.
Incense is not used merely because it is pretty, or because it smells sweet, or because we like “high church”, but rather because, as a living link with Christians and Jewish antiquity, it assures us that the early Christians believed as we believe, that when we gather together in His Name, God is in our midst, that we do not merely remember a dead Jew but have Communion with a Living Christ, that we do not merely long for a heaven that is “up yonder” or “in the sweet by and by”, but adore an Eternal Lord who is “right here and now.”
It adds to our service an atmosphere of mystery and well it might. For it signifies an invasion of the Eternal into time, of the Infinite All Holy into the midst of His people.
Additionally, we are called to glorify God with our bodies, and the use of incense with its sweet odor allows our sense of smell to participate in our worship; just as our sight, sound and motion do as we look, sing, and position our bodies.
So when incense is offered, it should properly awe and impress us with the terrifying fact of the imminent entrance of Him who flung the stars into space and who numbers the hairs of our heads, yet whose tender love is con- cerned with the sparrow’ s fall, who willed to be laid in a manger and nailed to a cross that you and I might know His love for all eternity.
Understanding its ancient meaning, as purification before the entrance of an important visitor, incense as the Church uses it is eloquent testimony and a vivid dramatization of the Church’ s most cherished beliefs and vital experiences: God’ s coming to man, really and actually, in man’s worship of God.
Why Is Incense Used?
Written by Fr. Homer F. Rogers
From a brochure at St. John’ s Church, Newport, RI
Adapted by The Church of the Good Shepherd Rosemont, PA
Updated by St. John’ s Episcopal Church, October 2017
Updated by Good Shepherd Angilcan Church 2021