Myrrh and aloes and cassia
James Cathcart
August 30, 2021
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Psalm 45: 6-9 (NRSVA)
6 Your throne, O God, endures for ever and ever.
Your royal sceptre is a sceptre of equity;
7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.
From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;
9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honour;
at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
Myrrh and aloes and cassia are the aromatic compounds that burst in the middle of this reading — warm, comforting, earthy — painting a picture of a welcome, hospitality and calm.
There’s a lovely bakery near me that you can smell at least a block away as you enter ‘the cinnamon zone’. The sandstone tenements are transformed by the early morning sun and the fragrant activity of the bakery — an enacting of heaven every morning.
What are your favourite smells? One of mine is rosewater in a lamb tagine, adding sweetly floral notes amongst the savoury ingredients. And I love the salty, seaweed kick of sea air, some blue space to clear the mind.
As we pray today think of something that you love the smell of that you can bring into your prayer. Perhaps it’s something that you can find right now like tingling mint that grows in your garden or zesty paprika perched in a kitchen cupboard. Find a scent you love, either round about you or in your memory, and weave it into your prayer. Thank God for it and what it means to you.
PRAYER:
Dear God,
As we walk through your world we stir up an aromatic theatre.
Thank you for the smells:
that energise, enthuse and motivate us,
that alert and warn and guard us
that comfort and steady and reassure us.
Thank you for all our favourite scents
you are so good to us.
Amen.
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