Sacred Signs
by Romano Guardini

INCENSE

"AND I saw an angel come and stand before the altar, having a

golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, and the

smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up

before God from the hand of the angel." So writes Saint John in

the mysterious book of the Apocalypse.

The offering of an incense is a generous and beautiful rite. The

bright grains of incense are laid upon the red-hot charcoal, the

censer is swung, and the fragrant smoke rises in clouds. In the

rhythm and the sweetness there is a musical quality; and like

music also is the entire lack of practical utility: it is a

prodigal waste of precious material. It is a pouring out of

unwithholding love.

"When the Lord was at supper Mary brought the spikenard of great

price and poured it over his feet and wiped them with her hair,

and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment." Narrower

spirits objected. "Whereto this waste?" But the Son of God has

spoken, "Let her alone. She hath done it against my burial."

Mary's anointing was a mystery of death and love and the sweet

savour of sacrifice.

The offering of incense is like Mary's anointing at Bethany. It

is as free and objectless as beauty. It burns and is consumed

like love that lasts through death. And the arid soul still takes

his stand and asks the same question: What is the good of it?

It is the offering of a sweet savour which Scripture itself tells

us is the prayers of the Saints. Incense is the symbol of prayer.

Like pure prayer it has in view no object of its own; it asks

nothing for itself. It rises like the Gloria at the end of a

psalm in adoration and thanksgiving to God for his great glory.

It is true that symbolism of this sort may lead to mere

aestheticism. There are imaginations in which the fragrant clouds

of incense induce a spurious religiosity; and, in such instances,

when it does so, the Christian conscience does right to protest

that prayer should be made in spirit and in truth. But though

prayer is a plain, straight-forward business, it is not the so-

much-for-so-muchness which the niggardly imagination and

fleshless heart of the religious Philistine would make of it. The

same spirit persists that produced the objection of Judas of

Kerioth. Prayer is not to be measured by its bargaining power; it

is not a matter of bourgeous common sense.

Minds of this order know nothing of that magnanimous prayer that

seeks only to give. Prayer is a profound act of worship, that

asks neither why nor wherefore. It rises like beauty, like

sweetness, like love. The more there is in it of love, the more

of sacrifice. And when the fire has wholly consumed the

sacrifice, a sweet savour ascends.