phil19034:
When I was a kid, our altar boys wore black cassocks sometimes and red cassocks other times. Basically, they switched back & forth during the liturgical year.
If you were familiar with such a custom, during which times of the liturgical year would the servers wear red vs black?
Thank you & God Bless
That was entirely a matter of local choice or that of the individual pastor. There was never any set pattern.
To put that another way, you’re going to get all kinds of answers, and all of them right (unless someone tries to assert “my way was the right way”).
What I remember from growing up in my own parish was this:
Black for weekdays.
Red for Sundays.
Black for Sundays in Lent (not Advent).
Red during the Easter Octave.
Red for Holy Days of Obligation.
We also had “special” surplices that had gold-colored crosses embroidered (I remember there were several different types of these, and each boy got whatever happened to fit). We wore these on Holy Thursday, Easter, and Christmas. Other than that, they wore plain white surplice all the time.
Today, I do mostly the same thing at my own parish, however, I’ve added purple cassocks which they wear whenever the vestment color is violet.
I would like to add other colors and have surplices with crosses of different colors, but the cost is just too much because we need several of each size.
