Will you be seeing Red this Sunday?

With so much going on in the world at the moment, it’s easy to get angry, I know. But why RED? Red is a colour that attracts attention. Red warns us of danger – stop lights, or a misdemeanour – a red card, or debt – in the red. Red is a primary colour and a warm colour. It symbolizes fire, spirit, energy, strength, power, intensity, courage, and determination. It’s a popular colour for football clubs, as well as revolutionary and socialist political parties.

And red is a passionate colour. Who hasn’t seen the shops full of red roses at Valentines? We find red all around us.

And, if you come to church this Sunday, our churches will be decorated in red.

The Church’s use of colours to celebrate special seasons goes back over a thousand years. However, the fiercely protestant English church jettisoned “popish” liturgical colours in the seventeenth century. More recently these colours have been re-introduced to connect us to the spiritual seasons. These colours are used for the priest’s vestments, as well as church hangings and altar items. Just as red can have a variety of connotations, so it can mean different things in the church. At ordination I obtained two red stoles – one of which is pictured on the left below.

Red, the colour of blood, indicates death and suffering. I wear this stole to recall Christ’s Passion and the Cross in Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Good Friday. In addition, it’s used on Saints’ Days, the crown recalling the martyr’s reward.

But this Sunday, Pentecost, is not a memorial of a death: quite the opposite. At Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church, as a mighty wind and as tongues of flame. On such occasions  a stole uses red to point to the work of God the Holy Spirit, frequently depicted as the dove. It calls to mind the flames alighting on the disciples at Pentecost. Red is also appropriate for Baptisms, Confirmations and Ordinations – in which we pray for the Holy Spirit to accompany us in our lives.

I pray the colour red will bring us together in the warmth of the Spirit this Pentecost, the birthday of the Church.