These are the colors of the Liturgical Year. In the Catholic Church, each season has a color and each color has a meaning. Here is the guide to the colors of the Liturgical Year and what they mean.
Understanding the Liturgical Colors In the liturgical calendar, the color for each day corresponds to that day's main liturgical celebration, even though Optional Memorials (perhaps with a different color) might be chosen instead. The four main colors shown are. In the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), which provides universal guidelines for the celebration of the Mass, the Church provides: Diversity of color in the sacred vestments has as its purpose to give more effective expression even outwardly whether to the specific character of the mysteries of faith to be celebrated or to a sense of Christian life's passage through the course.
The color red communicates the motif of strength-strength and power the Holy Spirit gives in order for God's people to call on the name of Jesus Christ and share that powerful name with others. There is no question that red is a compelling festive color. Consequently, it serves well as the traditional color for the heroic martyrs of the church.
Liturgical color helps to symbolize the deeper realities we celebrate and help us to worship in the spirit of the season. White, the color of joy and victory, is a festive color and is used for the seasons of Easter and Christmas. The colors for major festival days and seasons are listed below in order of the Christian Year.
For lesser festivals not listed below, such as Transfiguration, commemorations of saints, baptism, and marriage, use white. For commemorations of martyrs and Reformation, use red. For Thanksgiving, different faith traditions use green, red or white.
STRAIGHT ANSWERS-THE COLOR OF LITURGICAL VESTMENTS Fr. William Saunders Would you please explain the different colors used at Mass and the vestments? In my travels, I have even seen blue and black vestments which I have never seen before.-A reader in Chantilly The Church's liturgical norms do prescribe specific vestment colors for various celebrations. The purpose of utilizing different.
Liturgical Color Guide: Understanding the Liturgical Seasons and Colors Liturgy is a form of public religious worship within the different denominations of Christianity. During this public worship, colors are worn to signify different feelings and times of year. How to choose the right colors? The first person to systematize the Roman Catholic color scheme was Pope Innocent III, pontiff from 1198 to 1216, who named four liturgical colors: white, red, black and green.
The exact shade depended on what dyes were available at the time, and names for colors could differ, said Father Witczak. Light, innocence, purity, joy, triumph, glory White represents joy, innocence, purity and glory. White vestments are worn during the seasons of Easter and Christmas; on all feasts of Our Lord other than his Passion; on feasts of the Blessed Virgin; the angels and those saints who were not martyrs.
Note: White is the color of Popes' non.