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Guy Erlich, an Israeli businessman, inspects a frankincense tree at a plantation on Kibbutz Almog in the West Bank on November 30, 2017. Conflict, climate change and poverty are causing the tree that produces frankincense resin to disappear. CNS photo / Ronen Zvulun, Reuters
The Gospel of Matthew never details how many magi came from “the East”, but makes it clear that they traveled to pay homage to the “newborn king of the Jews” and “offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
Beyond their great monetary value, scholars say, the gifts had deep symbolic significance: gold for the nobility of the Christ child as king of the Jews; incense, which was burned in religious ceremonies, for his divinity; and myrrh, which was used in cuts or wounds and in the anointing of corpses, to prefigure his role as a healer and predict his death.
Both myrrh and frankincense have exceptional medicinal qualities, which would have made them a very useful and thoughtful gift to the Holy Family, said Anjanette DeCarlo, chief sustainability scientist at the US-based Aromatic Plant Research Center.
“At the time, infant mortality was high,” and frankincense and myrrh were “two of the most potent antimicrobial substances in the old medicine cabinet,” DeCarlo told Catholic News Service in a video call from Vermont, where he teaches at St. Michael’s College in Colchester.
“From a Christian perspective, he is the most important baby ever born and of course, wouldn’t you take something for that baby to make sure?” That he could stay healthy, he said.
What is unhealthy, however, is the future of incense.
Highly sought after for its religious, medicinal and domestic purposes, it is one of the oldest traded products in the world, dating back at least 5,000 years.
An aromatic resin, frankincense is harvested from the “tears” that seep from cuts made to a variety of species of boswellia trees, which grow in the dry and harsh climates of Yemen and Oman on the Arabian Peninsula, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. in East Africa and Northwest India.
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Guy Erlich, an Israeli businessman, touches an incense tree at a plantation on Kibbutz Almog in the West Bank in this Nov. 30, 2017 file photo. Conflict, climate change and poverty are causing the tree that produces it to disappear. frankincense resin. CNS photo / Ronen Zvulun, Reuters
These trees are in serious decline and one species in particular, Boswellia papyrifera, which grows in the troubled regions of Ethiopia and Sudan, is at risk of going extinct in the next 50 years, said DeCarlo, who also leads the Save Frankincense project. A study published last year in the journal Nature Sustainability predicted that frankincense resin production will be cut in half in the next 20 and a half years.
The Catholic Church is a great consumer of incense as incense has an important place in its liturgies.
Dried gum grains are burned over hot coals in a censer or incense burner on the altar, the book of the Gospels, the offerings, the sacred images and the people participating in the Mass, with the smoke symbolizing sanctification, purification and the prayers of the faithful rising up to God.
The smoke, rising upward, draws people’s eyes to remind them of heaven, and the aroma of incense is a reminder of the significance of the Mass.
Incense burning also activates different channels in the brain to relieve anxiety or depression, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“It promotes a feeling of spiritual connection and enlightenment,” which is why burning incense has been an integral part of many different religious rituals and rites for millennia, said Stephen Johnson, an organism biologist and incense researcher.
“Religions have a very important role to play” in helping not only preserve, but regenerate incense sources and support collectors, he told CNS in a video call from Seattle.
“It is absolutely possible for us to take care of the trees, take care of the gatherers, take care of their communities and take care of ourselves,” he said. “Everyone involved in the supply chain should benefit.”
After years of working in Somalia and developing ethical and sustainable collection standards, Johnson said he decided to establish his own business and projects that show what regenerative supply chains look like.
Regeneration tries to put ecosystems, communities and plants in a better situation by using the proceeds to support research, conservation and community development and by ensuring that collecting communities have access to fair prices and greater opportunities, he said. .
This new way of doing business has to happen now, DeCarlo said. “In ten years it will be too late.”
Most of the existing trees are “the last of their generation,” with no young trees taking their place, he said, and over-harvesting trees impairs their ability to regenerate, stay healthy and survive.
Conflicts and climate change worsen already harsh conditions and local communities are under great pressure to clear land and grow crops to survive, he added. Also, grazing cattle love to chew on the tender young leaves of the new growth.
Johnson and DeCarlo insisted that buyers of incense, including Catholic churches and the essential oil industry, must demand transparency and traceability at the source of resins and accountability to ensure that collectors receive fair payment.
“Today, we have the ability to go directly to the source, talk to the actual collectors and employ technologies that allow us to trace products throughout the supply chain and make sure everything is done ethically” and in some way that allows trees and communities to thrive, Johnson said.
Without such controls, the industry is “very open to corruption and / or decline” and “is not helping people on the ground, is not helping companies that want to do the right thing” and is not helping consumers who “I don’t want to be killing trees or hurting communities or being an accessory to something that is not sustainable,” DeCarlo said.
“We desperately need the Catholic Church to step in,” he said, for example, promoting regenerative supply chains and tree cultivation with programs to adopt trees and help struggling nurseries, even at the parish, school or individual level.
It is a direction that aligns with Pope Francis’ call to care for creation, DeCarlo said.
As a Catholic, she said, “I always felt that if he really knew what was going on with the incense, he would get involved. That this is something so close and dear to us. The fact that they brought the baby Jesus is no small matter. “
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