Another first in my long years of liturgical ministry. Someone absconded with the parish thurible sometime in the past two weeks. Getting ready for the Vigil Mass Saturday night, the sacristan comes to the piano and asks where I put it.
Me? I’ve been sick the past ten days and out of the office most of those. I checked the usual hiding places, and it was nowhere to be seen.
Our pewter thurible is far from the most valuable piece of liturgical property on the premises. It’s almost more likely it went off in search of a busier parish on its own initiative. We average six funerals a year at the student center. The students burn more incense at vigils or Taize Prayer or other such activities than we do for Mass.
Of course, if we had something of the scale of the Botafumeiro, it would be much harder to run off with it.
