The Christian Church year does not begin with January 1. It begins with the Sunday nearest
November 30. Sometimes that Sunday is the last one in November or the first Sunday in
December. The Church year begins with the season of Advent a word which means coming
and refers to the coming of Christ into the world in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Advent season consists of the four Sundays prior to Christmas.
The color that is used on the hangings on Church furnishings, clergy stoles and vestments,
and choir stoles is PURPLE or VIOLET.
The season is a time of penitence and anticipation in preparation for the coming of Christ,
so the color purple represents the attitude.
Feelings, emotions + moods:
Ever since the beginning of time it seems that people have associated feelings and emotions
with colors. Luescher and Scott for instance even went so far as to say that a person with
a preference for the color purple shows mental and emotional immaturity. This later failed
empirical studies by Holmes, Fouty, Wurtz, & Burdick, 1985, Cernovsky & Fernando, 1988,
Cernovsky, 1986, Holmes, Wurtz, Waln, Dungan, & Joseph, 1984 (Frenando, 1992).
I never meant to cause you any pain
Spirituality:
Purple can represent knowledge of the spiritual in a conscious existence. Purple has a
positive meaning of royalty and positive personal growth and a negatave meaning of injury.
The color purple may symbolize mystery and therefore could represent, in psychological
terms, deep intuition or awareness of some type as yet unexplored dimension of the self.
negative attributes: obsession, separateness, over-sensitivity, criticism,
tendency to constantly wish to "go home".
PURPLE Media - feature the tragic meaning of purple:
Films such as "The Purple Heart" (1944) and "The Color Purple" (1985)
I only wanted to see you laughing in the Purple Rain
"The Color Purple" (by Alice Walker, 1985) - a point of view:
"In response to what is the meaning of the color purple, I associate it with identity.
It is a neutral colour not pink or blue assocaited with the traditional colours of male
and female. When she paints her room purple at the end of the novel she has found her
own space in the world, she has started communicating with her sister again and not
with the dominant male white god, she has become a wage earner and a property owner
overcoming the traditional image of women as dependent 'others.' It is her colour,
focussing on the positive aspects of her life."