Thursday, December 8, 2016

Color and Adiaphora

I have repeatedly chalked liturgical colors up to a matter of adiaphora. At the end of the day, I'm not terribly concerned.

Have I spent the better part of a week researching and writing about liturgical colors? Yes. Because I'm a nerd.

Am I going to excommunicate anyone over it? No.

Still, I don't believe adiaphora is synonymous with "unimportant." Those charged with caring for sacred things should always think carefully about everything. The seemingly trivial decisions we make have resounding implications.

In the words of Paul Strodach, from his liturgical commentary A Manual on Worship:
Use of Liturgical Colors, and hangings and vestments in such colors, are not arbitrary or recent invention or innovation. They are the development of church sue and expression through many centuries. There is a definite purpose in their employment: it is to teach through the eye. They are symbolic, and by this means the worshiper receives constantly and silently an external comment or lesson which calls to mind the period of the Church Year through which he is passing, in which he is worshiping, and the great facts of redemption memorialized. Such a contribution is very helpful: it adds its individual not to the great harmony of the worship in which he is engaging.

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