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Religious Uses: Pagan, Hebrew, and Christian: Sundays

GREEN is the canonical color for use on Sundays, week-days, and ordinary festivals. Hope and joy and the bright promises of youth are signified by green.

VIOLET, another canonical color, is appropriate for use on Septuagesima and Quinquagesima Sundays, during Lent, and on Advent Sunday. The chastening and purifying effects of suffering find expression in this color. BLACK, also a canonical color, is a symbol of death and of the mourning and sorrow inspired by death. Therefore it is only used in the Church on Good Friday, to symbolize the sorrow and despair of the Christian community at the death of Christ, a sorrow soon to be turned to joy by His glorious resurrection.