Catholic Vestment Colors: Symbols of Our Beliefs

Color matters. There's a reason why you're not likely to find a lot of bright red and yellow in an investment company's advertisement - or deep greens and rich browns on the sign of a fast-food joint.

Or people wearing white armbands at a funeral. Actually, in some parts of the world: you might. What colors mean is at least partly a matter of culture.¹

Here in the West, the Catholic Church's color for (most) funerals was black. Now, it's black or white. I mentioned that yesterday.

Catholic Vestment Colors Mean Something

There's a reason for the priest celebrating Mass in a different color on different days - and it's not because he got bored with green. All those colors mean something: white; red; green, violet, black, and (around here) rose.

I didn't mention blue. That's because this blog is about a Catholic's experiences and outlook in America. Blue is an important color for vestments in some places: but not in this part of the world.² Not yet, anyway.

The symbolism of vestment colors in America is also what I could check on personally, without making a long-distance call. I'll get back to that.

The Catholic Church has a rich heritage of symbols - which I think could be discussed more often. But that's another topic. Here in the West, about a century back, these were what vestment colors meant:

• White
  • Light
    • Innocence
    • Purity
    • Joy
    • Glory
• Red
  • Fire and blood
    • Burning charity
    • Martyrs' generous sacrifice
• Green
  • Plants and trees
    • Hope of life eternal
• Violet
  Gloomy cast of the mortified
  • Affliction and melancholy
• Black
  • Mourning
    • Sorrow of death
    • Sombreness of the tomb
  (Source: "Liturgical Colours," The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908), via New Advent)

About 50 years after that, this was the symbolism attached to the colors of vestments:

• White
  • Purity of soul
  • Holiness
• Red
  • The shedding of blood
  • Burning love
• Green
  • Hope
• Violet
  • Penance
  Black
  • Mourning
• Rose
  • Joy in the midst of penance
• Gold
  • Used on solemn occasions in place of white, red, or green vestments
  (Source: "Baltimore Catechism," Lesson 27, via EWTN.com)

Less than an hour ago, I called a deacon whose knowledge of the Church I've learned to trust: and he tells me that the colors mean the same thing now.

American English has shifted a little during the last century, but that seems to be the most significant change in discussion of vestment colors mean.

Related post:

• "Colorful Catholics: Vestment Colors For Every Season"
  (July 22, 2010)

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¹ Posts about color, in another blog:

• "Color, Psychology, Emotions and Mood"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (January 30, 2010)
• "Are Moods Really Blue? Color, Psychology, and Culture"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (May 21, 2008)

² Catholics live and worship in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, South America, the Philippines, and many other places: but the American experience is what I know about first-hand.