The Burning of Incense

While in Santiago we had the pleasure of attending a pilgrims mass at the cathedral in Santiago. Not being Catholic, I had never really seen a catholic mass before. I couldn’t really understand anything about the mass because I’m not familiar with how a mass is done and it was also in Spanish so I couldn’t even follow along with the words. Overall the whole thing was a little confusing for me but the most confusing part was this thing that they did at the end. All of a sudden there were at least 5 guys pulling on ropes that swung this shiny smoking object through the air. In the picture below it is the big black/silver thing hanging in the middle of the picture.

I later found out from some friends that this was the burning of incense that usually happens during mass just on a grander scale. After they told me what it was all about I decided to do some research and figure out why it was so important since they seemed to make a big deal out of it at the mass. So, the shiny smoking object that they were swinging around is called a censor and that is what they put the burning incense in. Once the incense is burning, they proceed to swing the censor around sending the smoke wafting throughout the church. While researching I found out that smoke of the incense is a symbol of purification and sanctification as well as a symbol of the prayers of the faithful rising to heaven. Researching this ritual gave me insight into the mass that I didn’t have before. Going back to the grandness of the whole thing, I think that the reason the censor is so big is because the cathedral is huge and they have a lot of people that come to worship so they need something big enough to put the incense in so that they can burn enough for all of the people that come to the mass. Overall, the cathedral was beautiful and getting to experience the pilgrims mass was pretty cool even if I didn’t understand it.