Scent of a Roman

Walking into many stores you have to walk through a labyrinth of store displays hawking many varieties of perfume to sell as Christmas gifts. The celebrity branded ones are to me the funniest and there is even a perfume by the guys at Orange County Choppers called Full Throttle. Recently I ran across this olfactory related story.

Want to feel closer to your religion? A South Dakota family says they have the perfect aromatic way to strengthen your faith. This is the season for candles. We’re seeing all the usual holiday scents.

But one couple created a candle that’s supposed to smell like Jesus Christ.

At Interiors Plus in Waseca, they sell typical holiday gifts. But owner Kim Foels has one thing no one else in Minnesota has, "His Essence."

…While reading The Bible, Karen learned that when the Messiah returns, his garments will smell like myrrh, aloe and cassia.

Karen said, "And I thought I wonder what they would smell like. It would have to be wonderful because of who they are representing." [Source]

Well I got to put in my two scents about this. I guess it is a good thing that they didn’t create a candle that smelled like Jesus after he spent 40 days in the wilderness. This I guess to be a doorway into a whole new line of bracelets with the initials for How Would Jesus Smell.

And when the LORD smelled the pleasing odor, the LORD said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done." Gen 8: 21

They have ears, but do not hear;noses, but do not smell. Ps 115:6

And then there are multiple Old Testament mentions of sacrifices producing pleasing odors to the Lord, so why don’t we have religiously themed perfumes?

Now if Calvin Klein had set up business during the first part of salvation history I am sure we would have had a perfume titled.

Calvin Klein Immolation – a pleasing odor to the LORD.

Now for those of us with a traditionalist bent I can think of a good product for us. A perfume that smells just like the incense used at Mass and delivered via a bottle in the shape of a very POD censer. We could dab this on ourselves before going to a liturgically deprived parish so as not to be too liturgically impoverished.

Smell and Bells would be another good brand name. The bottle would be shaped like a bell with a small clapper and ringing the bell would cause an aspirator to dispense the fragrance.

Then for progressives they could make "Scent of Vatican II." This perfume would be totally odorless and you would just have to imagine what you want it to smell like. This shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for them since they have developed a good imagination in regards to the texts of Vatican II.