FRANKINCENSE DIVINE LITURGY OF THE PRESANCTIFIED GIFTS   THE EVENING LIGHT It is evening in Great Lent. The shadows lengthen and merge into dusk as the sun moves beyond the trees and slips over the edge of the world. At Epiphany the celebration of the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (1) has begun. Following the Little Entrance, Fr. Scott intones: Wisdom! Be attentive! and the faithful assembled respond with the hymn: O joyful Light of the holy glory of the Father Immortal, the heavenly, holy, blessed One, O Jesus Christ. Now that we have reached the setting of the sun, and see the evening light, we sing to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is fitting at all times to raise a song of praise in measured melody to You, O Son of God, the giver of life. Behold, the universe sings Your glory. After the readings, a liturgical colloquy based on Psalm 141 takes place wherein the faithful respond after each petition as follows: Let my prayer arise like incense before You, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice. All the while the priest, vested in red, stands at the Royal Doors gently swinging the censer to and fro from which emerges fragrant gray smoke swirling and ascending slowly into the vault of our temple bearing aloft the prayers of the faithful. Thereinafter follow the three prostrations. THE MAGI COLLECTING FRANKINCENSE What does this mean and where did this custom arise? It is unknown when in pre-historic antiquity man discovered that the burning of certain plant matter gave off fragrant smoke, which because of its delight to the senses and its costliness came to be associated with the rituals of kings and priests. Most religions of the world, then as now, used incense in their rituals with much of the same symbolism which we recognize today. In this essay, the term "incense" refers to any vegetable matter with emits fragrance when burned, whereas the word "frankincense, applies only to the gum or resin of trees and shrubs of certain species of the genus, Boswellia, found in the southern Arabian peninsula and the nearby coast of Somalia. (2) In ancient times frankincense was a precious commodity of trade, often by weight more precious than gold, which moved about the Orient along the channels of commerce. Its cost limited its use to the rituals of kings and priests not only to lend them dignity and beauty but also to symbolize the ascent of their petitions to the Divinity. As a major item of commerce, frankincense brought wealth to those who controlled its sources and distribution. It was held in such esteem that its was included with gold and myrrh as a gift worthy of the King of Kings presented by the Three Kings to the Christ Child. In the Early Church, the use of incense was not apparent. With the liberation of the Church by Emperor Constantine in the 4th century and the subsequent merger of the many of the rituals of Church and State, incense found its way into eucharistic ceremonial; it symbolized, as elsewhere, the ascent of the prayers of the faithful and the merits of the saints. It was soon regarded as an important sacramental in public worship. (3)   STS. CONSTANTINE AND HELEN FRANKINCENSE CENSER In the Eastern Church, far more than in the Western Church, the use of incense was and remains widespread and of paramount importance. It attends all liturgical and non-liturgical forms of worship. It is dispensed by means of a censer or thurible which is a brass, silver or gold bowl in which lighted charcoal is placed upon which the incense is scattered. The bowl is suspended from three chains symbolizing the Trinity to which bells are attached, the same representing the proclamation of the Gospel to all the world. The priest or deacon holds the chains at the top and swings the censer outward vigorously and repeatedly in a gesture both effective and symbolic. In liturgical celebrations, the altar, the altar of preparation, the icons, the iconostasis, the celebrants and the people are censed repeatedly. When censing the people, they respond by bowing in recollection that the prayer of the people, like the smoke of incense, arises to Heaven. Moreover, in censing the people the Church acknowledges that they, as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, are living icons. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author acknowledges thoughts and words from the service books of the Ruthenian Byzantine (Greek) Catholic Metropolia of the US, The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Washington, DC, the Catholic Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Britannica, and Fr. John Matusiak, Orthodox Church in America. Icon of the Magi from St. Isaac of Syria Skete FRANKINCENSE TREE FOOTNOTES: 1) The Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in the Eastern Church is an ancient evening service which may be celebrated Monday through Friday during Great Lent, days traditionally held to be "non-liturgical", inasmuch as the Divine Liturgy is of Resurrectional character. It consists primarily of Lenten vespers in which communion of the Holy Gifts consecrated on the preceding Sunday are offered; thus the use of the word "presanctified". Although, according to ancient canons, Monday through Friday in Great Lent are considered non-liturgical days, modern practice confines the liturgy normally to Wednesdays and Fridays. There are some who suggest that the liturgy is the inspiration of sixth-century St. Gregory I, Pope of Rome (a proposition contested by others), although the form of the liturgy used by the Eastern Church is purely Byzantine. The Western, i. e. Roman Church celebrates the Mass of the Presanctified only once a year, namely on Good Friday. For more information, see Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in: http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri 2) Boswellia sacra, also called B. carterii and C. thurifera is a small tree or shrub found in the coastal regions of the southern Arabian peninsula and nearby coastal Somalia. The trees furnish a valuable gum or resin obtained through incisions made in the trunk. From time to time, the hardened gum is gathered during May to September by Somalis who pay the Arabs for the privilege of collecting it. In pre-Christian times, frankincense trees were imported into and established in Egypt where the gum was burned in religious rituals. Trees were also imported into Israel before the Babylonian Exile (586-538 BC) to provide incense for use on incense altars and in Temple worship. Following the destruction of the Second Temple, use of incense disappeared from Jewish worship. 3) Sacramentals are blessings of lower order than Sacraments instituted for the sanctification of certain ministries of the Church, certain states of life, and a great variety of circumstances in Christian life. See Chapter 4, Article 1 of the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, ISBN: 0819815195 and THE ORTHODOX CHURCH by Timothy Ware (Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia), at page 276, ISBN: 0140146563. Incense is blessed for liturgical purposes in the Eastern Church by the following prayer of the priest: We offer incense to You, O Christ, our God, unto an aroma of spiritual fragrance that, having received it on Your heavenly altar, You in return send down to us the grace of Your most Holy Spirit. COMMENTS It is our practice to solicit the comments of various persons about the materials which we propose to publish in the Epiphany parish Web site. Among those received in response to the first rough draft of the new page are the words of Fr. David Petras. Fr. Petras is the Director of Spiritual Formation at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Sts. Cyril & Methodius in Pittsburgh, PA and is a frequent contributor to our eparchial bulletin, EASTERN CATHOLIC LIFE. We publish in their entirety Fr. Petras' comments including his caveat. "The questions you ask are very involved. Let me just make some off-the-cuff remarks. The origins of the Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Church are not all documented. It (probably) originated in the fifth century, certainly in the sixth century and the Council of Trullo by the end of the seventh century considers it a part of the law of the Church. Threre must have been some question about it, since the Prayer before the OUR FATHER has to justify it by stating (in our address to God), "You revealed the mystery of this Liturgy". The reflective reason given to it by theology is that it was not proper to say the anaphora in the Great Fast, since the anaphora was the commemoration of the Resurrection. However, the Resurrection could be celebrated on Saturday (the Sabbath) and Sunday (the Lord's Day). Therefore, the Liturgy with the anaphora was not celebrated from Monday to Friday, but Communion was distributed, since the Great Fast was also seen as the journey through the desert, where the Lord's food was manna. The Body of our Lord is the fulfillment of the type of the manna and is the Christian's food during his journey through the desert of the Fast. The Presanctified Liturgy was celebrated every day of the Great Fast, and also Holy Week, including Good Friday. The liturgical books do not prohibit it being celebrated every day, but the custom was developed of celebrating it only on Wednesday and Friday, probably because of the time and preparations involved. It is still celebrated every day of Holy Week - however, not on Holy Thursday, which has the unique privilege of being the day on which the Eucharist was instituted, hence, the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, and on Good Friday, which later theological reflection saw as a day of complete fast, on which it would be inappropriate, therefore, to take the Eucharist. The celebration of the Presanctified also was not limited only to the Great Fast, but seemed to have been done on other penitential days throughout the year. It was also celebrated, although in a different form from the Lenten fast, for marriages and the crowning of emperors. The Council of Trullo made the Great Fast prohibition law, although this Council is not formally recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. Other provisions are matters of tradition. You may be interested that the swinging of the censer on chains was not the most ancient Byzantine practice. Originally, they just carried it an incense boat with a handle attached. This makes the rubric, "to make the sign of the cross" with the incense more understandable. The deacon would literally make the sign of the cross with the incense boat. This is why one swing of the censer is actually three swings. When they more sensibly (makes for a lot more dramatic action) went to chains they would continue with the sign of the cross. Technically the deacon is supposed to swing a little up, then a little to the left and finally a little to the right to make the sign of the cross. Your presentation on the Presanctified is fine, though, hard-nosed as I am , I have difficulty accepting that Gregory the Great had anything to do with the Presanctified. Interestingly, the Oriental Congregation, when it promulgated our Presanctified, forbad the commemoration of Gregory in the dismissal."   Our Church:  Our Identity  |   Parish History  |  Our Temple  |  Byzantine Metropolia Instruction-Canon Law  |  Greek Catholic Union  |  Four Hierarchs-Four Martyrs Garden of All Saints  |  Parishioners in Iraq Our Traditions: Theophany-Epiphany  |  The Diaconate  |  Our Lady of the Willow Frankincense  |  Water  |  Iconostasis  |  Hagia Sophia  |  St.Nicholas of Myra Pentecost  |  Theotokos  |  Cosmology  |  Ordination of Married Men The Orthodox Brethren: Eternal Memory  |  Mother of Churches  |  Christ the Savior Miscellanous: Islam-Jihad  |  The Chaldean Church  |  Other Sites Home Copyright © 1999 - 2005 by Epiphany Byzantine Catholic Church. All Rights Reserved.