In the Catholic Church, we celebrate different times of the year and different seasons of the Church. The Church celebrates a new year starting with Advent, the Christmas Octave, Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter to Pentecost, Pentecost to the Ascension, and finally another Ordinary Time. With each season, the Church associates a different color and different colors are used for certain feast days and days that fall within a certain liturgical season. We see these different colors when we see the priest and deacon wear them at mass with their vestments.
The color Purple is used during Advent, Lent, the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick, and is used by the priest when he is hearing confessions. This color symbolizes penance, waiting, and morning. Advent and Lent are times that we are waiting for a major event to happen in the Church. The Sacrament of Reconciliation shows that this sacrament is for those who seek penance as well as forgiveness of God. The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick embodies all three meanings of this color.
The color Red is used to celebrate the feasts of martyrs, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Pentecost. The color represents the shedding of blood for God. It also symbolizes the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ.
The Color White is used for the Christmas and Easter Season, feasts of the saints, Mary, the Holy Angels, Holy Thursday, and the sacraments of Holy Orders, Matrimony, and Baptism. This Church says that Gold can be used in place of white vestments. This liturgical color represents joy and celebration in the Church.
The last three colors, Green, Rose, and Black are used in very few places. Green is used for the liturgical season of Ordinary Time, which is from after the Feast of the Epiphany until Lent, and from the time after Pentecost until Advent. Rose is used on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays, which are breaks in Advent and Lent. Rose symbolizes joy since both of those Sundays indicate that the Season of penance and waiting is almost over. Black is now an optional color, and it can be used for the Feast of All Souls Day, and for funerals. It represents a deep mourning which is fitting for the two occasions a priest can use it.
So next time you are at Mass and you see a different color being used than normal, remember that the Church asks her priests to use these colors to show what we are celebrating and that each color represents a certain emotion that is associated with the feast, liturgical season, or sacrament being celebrated. |
