I'm still stewing a bit over last Sunday.  My 1st Grandchild, Dominic, was Baptized and I missed the whole thing!!!  Why, you ask??  That smelly incense that the priest used - he waved it all over the place.  Everyone, including him and everyone helping on the alter, and everyone in the church was coughing.  Not just a few coughs either!  I'm still not over my coughing spells that have been going on for 2 months.  And this was all I needed to set me off coughing and choking.  I was in the first row and had to run out coughing.  I barely made it to the restroom where I puked my guts out.  Then I got a cup of water and sat outside to settle down and quit coughing.  After a few minutes, I entered the lobby and my stomach lurched again.  The smell was overwhelming!

I ended up sitting outside for an hour and 15 minutes.  My daughter told me the priest lit the incesense two more times and was waving it around again.

As you can probably guess, I'm not Catholic.  We don't use incense at my church.  My old church did use it but never was the smoke that intense or was anyone choked out of the room. I'm sure there is some significant reason for it but my goodness - can we please have some clean air during the service.  Is it really necessary to choke EVERYONE?

After the service, we had a celebration, and I could not get near my Grandson because the smell of incense was still on him and it made me sick to my stomach!

Now, if this blog offends you, I'm sorry.  If you're catholic and want to explain it, please don't.  My reply is "moderation is a good thing"!  If the priest had only exercised a little moderation I would have been able to watch my youngest daughter stand as God Mother to my Grandson - something that means a lot to me!