August 7th, 2022
Nineteenth Sunday in ordinary time
by Fr. Boniface Endorf, O.P.
Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,
Tomorrow is the Solemnity of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order (formally called the Order of Preachers, thus the OP after friars’ names). St. Dominic founded his Order to preach for the salvation of souls. While traveling through southern France is the early 13th century he witnessed the Albigensian heresy overtaking the region. The Albigensians believed in a form of Gnosticism, which crops up from time to time in history. St. Augustine in the late 4th century was a gnostic too, of the Manichean variety, before converting to Catholicism.
Gnostics believe in a dualist system where there is a good god of spirit and an evil god of matter. The Albigensians took this dualism very seriously and the spiritual elite starved themselves, because food as matter was bad, and preached that having children was evil because it introduces more matter into the world. St. Dominic preached the Gospel to the Albigensians and through that experience founded an Order within the Church to continue preaching the Gospel. Thus the Dominicans began. On his feast day we celebrate St. Dominic’s charity—giving himself entirely to serving others and seeking their salvation in order to serve God.
Mass Tidbit:
Upon entering the sanctuary at the beginning of Mass the priest then kisses the altar and incenses the altar. Incense represents our prayers rising to heaven and signifies what is sacred. Thus incensing the altar makes present the sacredness of the altar, which is sacred because the sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated upon it. It also represents our prayers which rise to heaven through the celebration of the Mass.
To incense the altar, the priest bows to the altar and then incenses the altar with three swings of the thurible, which holds the incense, towards the crucifix on the altar. Then he walks around the altar incensing as he goes, stopping when facing the tabernacle and incensing three times toward the tabernacle. He then finishes circling the altar while incensing. The priest then bows again when having completed the incensing. During the Easter Season, when the Paschal candle is in the sanctuary, the priest also incenses the Paschal candle during the incensing of the altar.
Sometimes the priest swings the thurible so that the bottom part holding the incense clinks against the chain, but the Dominican tradition is to incense silently. Eastern rite Catholics even put 12 bells on the thurible that ring while incensing, but one of the bells has no ringer in it to represent Judas’s betrayal. One last random incense related fact: Vatican II, the latest Church council, recommended that altars be freestanding, ie: no longer be attached to the wall, so that the priest could incense around the entire altar.
At St. Joseph we generally use incense at all the Sunday Masses except the 9am Mass.
God Bless,
Fr. Boniface
