Certainly one of the most tragic losses inflicted by the Council and its implementers was the disappearance of the liturgical “black” vestments for the requiem mass, Good Friday etc. This color however happily survives in the ‘Gregorian” (Traditional) Mass. We say “black” in quotation marks because such vestments, in my experience, are always worked with silver, producing a most wondrous effect, as in these images. Twice in the last few weeks due to tragic circumstances the Catholic community in Fairfield county has had a chance to experience the Solemn Requiem mass.
The erudite Prof. Arkady P. Nebolsine has written perceptively and poetically about the inner meaning of these colors in his “O Serebre” (On Silver)(Christianskoe Izdatelstvo, 1995 -only in Russian). Speaking of the intimate connection between black and silver:
“If gold is more like the sun and its blazing heat, then silver resembles more the moon and her cold nocturnal light. The radiance (of silver) should penetrate the darkness like the light of the stars and moon, while leaving unbroken the silence of the nocturne-Nachtstuecke -the music of silence reserved only to her.
(Silver)expresses the the poetry of the night, founded upon mystical experience ( the “Dark night of the soul” of St. John of the Cross…the “Hymns to the Night’ of Novalis…)..In connection with black drapery or the bier, silver is associated with the Requiem. It is, however, not redolent of annihilation. Rather, the night is transfixed and transfigured by its own light – like Death, transfigured by the Resurrection.” ( 5-6, my translation)
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It must be noted, both in defense of the council fathers and in favor of wider usage of black, that the council never abrogated the liturgical colour black. And that it is allowed to be used in the Novus Ordo mass, for Good Friday, All Souls and for requiems and other masses for the dead. Many priests are beginning to bring it back in the Novus Ordo Mass. So you dont have to go to the EF to see it.
Sheldon,
So I must have been mistaken when I imagined I had heard so many times over the decades that the major V2 liturgical achievement in vestment color was that black had been discarded for white? It also did seem that the use of white became well-nigh universal in pastoral practice – in line with what you call a misconception.
I am well aware that the use of black vestments remained as an option for “insiders.” I myself helped organize a Novus Ordo mass 20 years ago for All Soul’s Day in which black was worn. And I have heard that certain priests use black more regularly than that. See this discussion:
http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/2007/10/modest-proposal-to-modern-rite-parish.html
But, just as in the case of Ad Orientem celebrations, the use of black in the NO remained the preserve of esoteric groups and individuals without the slightest influence on pastoral practice or the hierarchy. In contrast to this decades-long futility, the Traditional Mass simply requires what is fitting and appropriate
Mr. Chessman,
I never intended to say that it (the rejection) did not happen in practice. Only that it did not have to happen, and that we do not need to allow it to continue happening. We are on the same side on this one… I intended not hostility.
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