The Symbolism of Incense

Frankincense, Tear of the Incense Tree

Strictly speaking, liturgical incense is frankincense: the dried resin gathered by slashing the bark of certain trees of the genus Boswellia, above all Boswellia sacra of Arabia and the Horn of Africa. The sap oozes out, hardens in the air into small translucent tears, and it is this gum-resin, laid on a hot coal, that releases a fragrant smoke as it burns.^[2] The English word incense comes from the Latin incensum, "that which is burned," from the verb incendere, "to set on fire": incense is, literally, an offering consumed by fire.^[3]

In liturgical usage, frankincense is almost never used pure: it is blended with other resins and aromatics — myrrh, benzoin, storax — to compose scented mixtures. This practice of blending is itself biblical: the first recipe for sacred incense, given to Moses, is a compound of four substances "in equal parts."^[4]

Thurible, Boat, Thurifer: the Vocabulary of Incense

The gesture calls for a whole small set of objects, whose names form the proper vocabulary of incensation. The thurible — also called censer, from the Latin thus, thuris, "frankincense" — is the metal vessel, hung on chains, in which the charcoal burns; it is swung to quicken the coal and cast the smoke outward. The boat — so named because its shape recalls a little ship — is the container holding the reserve of incense grains; a small spoon is used to take them up and lay them on the charcoal. The one who carries the thurible and the boat is called the thurifer.^[5]

The swinging is no decorative fancy: it keeps the combustion going and regulates the thickness of the cloud. To incense an object or a person is to direct toward it one or more swings of the thurible — a broad movement that casts the smoke toward whatever is to be honored. The number of these swings is codified, for it expresses different degrees of veneration, as will be seen below.

"To Incense": a Gesture, Not Merely a Fragrance

The two dimensions of incense must be held together, for to reduce it to one or the other disfigures it. Incense is first a material: a resin, a fragrance, a smoke — something that strikes the senses, that is seen and breathed. But it is inseparably a gesture: its scent is not merely diffused, it is directed — incensed — toward someone or something, with a precise meaning.

That is why the liturgy speaks not only of "incense" but of "incensation": an ordered act of worship, performed by a minister, toward a determined object, according to rules. The fragrant smoke is the sign; the incensation is the rite. The whole symbolism of incense lies in this union of a perceptible matter and a spiritual intention.

The Altar of Incense and the Forbidden Recipe (Exodus 30)

Incense is no human invention: in the biblical narrative, it is God himself who commands its use. As he regulates the worship of the desert Tent, the Lord prescribes that Moses build, beside the altar of burnt offering, a second, smaller altar of acacia wood overlaid with gold: the altar of incense, on which Aaron is to burn incense "every morning" and "at twilight," "a perpetual incense before the Lord."^[6]

God then gives the precise composition of this sacred incense:

"Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy." — Exodus 30:34-35^[7]

Then follows a surprising clause: this incense is so holy that it is forbidden to make any like it for oneself. Whoever should compound anything like it "to enjoy its scent" would be "cut off from his people."^[8] Incense therefore belongs not to the realm of pleasure or luxury: it is reserved to God, withdrawn from all profane use. From the Old Testament onward, its logic is that of adoration: this perfume is not breathed in for pleasure, it is offered.

The Cloud of Incense on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16)

Incense plays a decisive role in the most solemn rite of the Jewish year, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Once a year alone, the high priest passes beyond the veil and enters the Holy of Holies, where the Ark rests. And he may enter only wrapped in a cloud of incense:

"And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small; and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat [...] lest he die." — Leviticus 16:12-13^[9]

The cloud of smoke shields man from the awesome holiness of God: it is like the moving veil behind which the sinner may draw near without perishing. This image — the cloud that both signals and veils the divine presence — runs through the whole Bible: the cloud of Sinai, the cloud filling Solomon's Temple, the cloud of the Transfiguration. The smoke of incense is its repeated liturgical sign.

"Let My Prayer Rise before You as Incense"

The most famous spiritual meaning of incense is fixed once for all by a verse of the Psalter, which the liturgy of Vespers still sings today:

"Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice." — Psalm 141:2^[10]

Everything is there: prayer rises as smoke rises; it ascends from below toward heaven; it spends and gives itself. The smoke of incense becomes the visible image of an invisible reality — the soul's desire stretched toward God. It is this equation, incense = prayer, that Christian liturgy inherited and made its own. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal still cites it explicitly as the foundation of incensation.^[11]

The Incense of the Nations: the Prophecy of Malachi

In the last of the prophets, incense even becomes the sign of the universal worship that all nations will one day render to the true God — an announcement Christian tradition reads as the prophecy of the Mass:

"For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering." — Malachi 1:11^[12]

The Council of Trent cites precisely this verse to show that the Eucharistic sacrifice, the "pure offering" presented "in every place," was foretold by the prophets.^[13] The incense of the nations is the prayer of the Church spread over the whole earth.

Zechariah in the Sanctuary, the Magi at Bethlehem

The New Testament too opens upon a cloud of incense. It is while offering incense in the sanctuary, as "the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense," that the priest Zechariah receives the announcement of John the Baptist's birth.^[14] The detail is no accident: the prayer of the people and the smoke of incense rise together, and it is in that moment that heaven opens.

A few chapters later, incense reappears among the gifts of the Magi: "They offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh."^[15] Patristic tradition read in them a three-word confession of faith: gold for the King, myrrh for the mortal man who would be buried, and frankincense for God, since incense is offered to God alone. Saint Irenaeus already commented on these gifts in this sense.^[16] From Christ's very cradle, incense proclaims his divinity.

The Golden Bowls and the Angel with the Censer (Revelation)

Yet it is in the heavenly liturgy of Revelation that incense receives its highest interpretation. Saint John sees the elders prostrate before the Lamb, each holding "a golden bowl full of incense," and he at once gives the key:

"...golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." — Revelation 5:8^[17]

The identification is explicit: incense is the prayers of the saints. A little further on, an angel stands at the heavenly altar, a golden censer in his hand:

"And the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God." — Revelation 8:3-4^[18]

The liturgy of earth does nothing but imitate this liturgy of heaven. When the deacon swings the thurible, he repeats the angel's gesture; the smoke rising from our altars is the perceptible sign of the saints' prayers ascending "before the face of God." It is this verse, Revelation 8:3, that the Roman Missal cites — with Psalm 141 — to justify the use of incense.^[19]

The Incense of the Martyrs: Offer or Die

Here is one of the most striking facts in the history of incense: for several centuries, Christians refused to burn any. This refusal was no indifference: it was a matter of life and death. In the Roman Empire, burning a few grains of incense before the statue of the emperor or of a deity was the quintessential act of civic worship. During the persecutions, it was precisely this gesture — trifling in appearance — that Christians were required to perform to prove their submission to the gods of Rome.

To refuse was torture and death; to accept was to deny Christ. A pinch of incense cast upon a brazier sufficed to apostatize. This association of incense with idolatrous worship explains the long Christian reluctance: the very smell of incense was, for the first faithful, the smell of denial.^[20]

Thurificati and Libellatici

The great persecution of the emperor Decius, in 250, systematized this ordeal: every citizen had to sacrifice and obtain a certificate — a libellus — attesting that he had duly offered incense. The drama of failures was such that the Church had to forge a vocabulary to classify the "fallen" (lapsi). Those who had actually burned incense (thus) before the idols were called thurificati, and libellatici those who, without sacrificing, had procured the certificate by cunning or by money.^[21] The very word thurificati — "those of the incense" — says enough about the place the gesture of incensation held in the Christian conscience: it had become the sign of denial.

It is thus clear why incense could enter Christian worship only after the end of the persecutions, when its idolatrous meaning had ceased to be an immediate threat. The cross had to triumph before incense, washed of its pagan stain, could be reordered toward the one true God.

The Late Entry of Incense into Christian Worship

Historians of the liturgy are categorical: during the first four centuries, there is no evidence of a properly cultic use of incense in Christian assemblies — except, perhaps, for practical reasons of cleanliness or at funerals.^[22] The first clear witness of a liturgical incensation appears in the 5th century, in the mystical author known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who describes the bishop incensing the altar and the sanctuary; the ancient Eastern liturgies of Saint James and Saint Mark also bear its trace at the same period.^[23]

The use then developed slowly in the West. Processions and the Gospel were incensed first; only in the 11th century did the incensation of the offerings at the offertory become general, and in the 14th century the Host and chalice at the Elevation.^[24] What we take today for an immemorial gesture is therefore, in reality, the fruit of a long maturing: the Church took centuries to reappropriate incense, the time needed to purify it of its old associations.

Prayer Rising Upward

The first meaning, the most immediate, is the one Psalm 141 engraved in Christian memory: incense is prayer. The smoke rising upward, holding nothing back, dispersing and losing itself in the air, speaks the very movement of prayer: the soul straining toward God, offering itself without calculation, ascending. The Roman Missal places this meaning first: "Incensation expresses reverence and prayer."^[25] And Revelation sealed it definitively by calling incense "the prayers of the saints."^[26]

Honor and Veneration

The second meaning is that of homage. To incense is to honor. In antiquity, kings and great men were incensed; the Church transposed this gesture to honor what, in her worship, represents Christ or is consecrated to him: the altar, the cross, the Book of the Gospels, the paschal candle, the relics of the saints, and persons themselves. That is why the priest is incensed — image of Christ the Head — but also the assembled people: for the baptized are "temples of the Holy Spirit," members of the Body of Christ, and their dignity deserves this honor.

Tradition has carefully graded this veneration according to the dignity of what is incensed — a point expressed, as will be seen, by the number of swings of the thurible. The same smoke can therefore speak adoration (reserved to God and the Blessed Sacrament) or veneration (given to the saints and their images), without ever confusing them.

The Fragrance of Christ

The deepest meaning was brought out by Saint Thomas Aquinas, who treats expressly of incense in studying the rites of the Mass. Why incense at the altar? Not, he answers, in obedience to a precept of the old Law, but for a twofold reason wholly Christian:

"Incense is used [...] first out of reverence for this sacrament, that is, to drive away by its fragrance anything that might offend; secondly to figure the effect of grace, with which Christ was filled as with a sweet fragrance, according to the Apostle's word: 'We are the fragrance of Christ,' and from him it spreads to the faithful." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 83, a. 5, ad 2^[27]

The fragrance spread abroad thus becomes the perceptible sign of an invisible reality: the grace of Christ, his holiness diffusing itself through his Body as a perfume fills a room. Saint Thomas relies on Saint Paul's word:

"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God." — Second Letter to the Corinthians 2:14-15^[28]

Thomas notes one more detail rich in meaning: at Mass, the altar is incensed first — the altar figures Christ — then all the rest, each according to his rank.^[29] The very order of incensation tells of the diffusion of grace: from Christ toward his Church.

Purification and Divine Presence

One last register, older, remains present in the background: incense purifies and sanctifies space. The fragrant smoke symbolically drives out what is impure, prepares the place for the presence of the sacred, and recalls the cloud which, in the Bible, signals and veils the glory of God — at Sinai, in the Temple, on the Day of Atonement.^[30] To incense a place is to declare it inhabited by mystery; to wrap the altar in smoke is to say that here stands a presence that cannot be looked upon face to face.

When Is Incense Used at Mass?

The use of incense at Mass remains optional: it may be employed in any form of the celebration, but it marks the more solemn Masses. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal lists five possible moments:

"The use of incense is optional in any form of Mass: a) during the entrance procession; b) at the beginning of Mass, to incense the cross and the altar; c) at the procession of the Book of the Gospels and the proclamation of the Gospel; d) when the bread and the chalice have been placed on the altar, to incense the offerings, the cross and the altar, as well as the priest and the people; e) at the showing of the Host and the chalice after the consecration." — General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 276^[31]

The coherence of the arrangement is clear: incense is used at the threshold (the entrance), upon the Word (the Gospel), upon the offering (the offertory) and upon the presence (the Elevation). At each summit of the liturgy, the smoke rises.

Whom and What Is Incensed: Two or Three Swings

The most precise — and most eloquent — point is the gradation of incensation. Not everything is incensed in the same way: the number of swings of the thurible expresses degrees of dignity. The Missal regulates it thus:

"The Blessed Sacrament, a relic of the Holy Cross and images of the Lord exposed for public veneration, the offerings for the sacrifice of the Mass, the cross on the altar, the Book of the Gospels, the paschal candle, the priest and the people are incensed with three swings of the thurible." — General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 277^[32]

Relics and images of the saints exposed for veneration receive only two swings, and solely at the beginning of the celebration, after the incensation of the altar.^[33] This difference of a single swing of the thurible visibly marks the degrees of liturgical honor: the first degree surrounds the Lord — present in the Blessed Sacrament — and all that touches directly upon his worship, while the saints receive the second degree, according to the distinction between adoration (latria), due to God alone, and veneration (dulia) given to the saints: the saints are honored, God alone is adored.

As for the altar itself, it is incensed with single swings, the priest walking around it if it stands free of the wall, or passing from one side to the other if it stands against it; the cross, if it stands upon the altar, is incensed before it.^[34] This incensation of the altar — a gesture of veneration addressed to Christ whom the altar figures — is detailed in The Symbolism of the Altar.

The Five Grains of Incense in the Paschal Candle

Incense reappears, in an unexpected form, in the most beautiful rite of the year: the Easter Vigil. Before lighting the paschal candle, the priest sets into it five grains of incense, arranged in the form of a cross — four at the ends and one in the center — saying: "By his holy and glorious wounds, may Christ the Lord guard and protect us." These five grains figure the five wounds of the Risen One — in his hands, his feet and his side — and recall the spices with which Christ's body was embalmed in the tomb.^[35]

The parallel is striking: incense, once offered at the cradle by the Magi, now seals the glorious wounds of the crucified and risen Christ. This precise point belongs to the symbolism of the candle, treated in The Symbolism of Candles; it suffices here to note that in these five grains incense binds death and resurrection together.

At Funerals, Dedications, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

Incense extends far beyond Mass. At funerals, the coffin is incensed: a gesture of honor given to the body of the deceased, which was a "temple of the Holy Spirit" and is destined to rise again; the smoke also accompanies the prayer of intercession for the soul. At the dedication of a church and an altar, incense is burned upon the newly consecrated altar, "to signify that the sacrifice of Christ, which is there accomplished in mystery, rises to God as a sweet-smelling fragrance," and the walls of the sanctuary are then incensed.^[36] At Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, lastly, the Host exposed in the monstrance is incensed while the Tantum ergo is sung: here the three swings speak pure and simple adoration of the Body of Christ.

The Thurible, the Boat, the Charcoal

The liturgical thurible is a small masterpiece of functional goldsmithery: an openwork bowl holding the charcoal, topped by a pierced lid through which the smoke escapes, the whole hung on three or four chains that allow it to be swung and the lid lifted for refilling. Over the centuries Christian goldsmiths made sumptuous objects of them — Romanesque thuribles shaped like the heavenly city, Gothic pieces chiseled into spires — which rank among the treasures of sacred art, alongside the objects described in Reliquaries in Christian Art.

The boat, holding the reserve of grains, completes the set; the charcoal must be lit beforehand and brought to red heat, so that the grains smolder without choking or flaring up. The thurifer's whole art is to keep a lively coal and an even cloud: too little fire, and the incense gives no smoke; too many grains at once, and the smoke turns acrid. Well-done incensation is a matter of discretion: smoke enough to be seen rising, never enough to blind.

The Botafumeiro of Compostela

The most famous thurible in the world is unquestionably the botafumeiro of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia: a giant thurible of silver-plated brass, about 1.50 m tall and over 50 kilos, hung from a rope at the crossing of the transept and set in motion by eight men — the tiraboleiros — who send it flying from one arm of the transept to the other, grazing the vault in a plume of smoke.^[37] The custom, attested since the Middle Ages, had a practical purpose — perfuming a cathedral filled with pilgrims exhausted by the road — but it has become one of the most arresting liturgical spectacles in Christendom, where the primary meaning of incense reappears, outsized: a prayer taking flight.

The great commentators on the liturgy loved to unfold the meaning of incense. In the 13th century, William Durandus of Mende, in his monumental Rationale divinorum officiorum, sees in the rising smoke the figure of the devotion of the heart and of the prayer of the faithful ascending to God, and in the fragrance spread abroad the good renown that the Christian life must exhale.^[38] In the 19th century, the restorer of the liturgy Dom Prosper Guéranger recalled that incensation accompanies the oblation in all the ancient liturgies, Eastern and Western alike, and that it belongs to those venerable gestures by which the Church surrounds the sacrifice with honor and prayer.^[39]

At bottom, the whole symbolism of incense holds in a single movement: that of ascent. The precious grain, laid on the fire, is consumed and disappears; but in disappearing it rises, it perfumes, it fills space. It is the very image of sacrifice and prayer: to give oneself, to lose oneself, to ascend. As the Psalmist writes, and as the Church repeats every evening at Vespers: "Let my prayer rise before thee as incense."^[40] The Christian who watches the blue smoke rise in the light of the candles beholds, with no need of words, what his own life is called to become.

• The Symbolism of the Altar — the incensation of the altar, figure of Christ.
• The Symbolism of Candles — light, the paschal candle and the five grains of incense.
• The Symbolism of the Tabernacle — the Eucharistic presence honored by incense at Benediction.
• The Symbolism of Liturgical Colors — the other great perceptible language of the liturgy.
• The Symbolism of Liturgical Vestments — the celebrant's vestments that are incensed.
• Reliquaries in Christian Art — sacred goldsmithery, to which thuribles also belong.
• Why Are Churches Oriented? — the direction of prayer rising toward the East.
• The Architecture of a Cathedral — the sacred space in which incensation unfolds.