Vestments with Saints

Vestments are the clothes that are worn by members of the clergy during Mass and other services and duties, they often are grand and beautiful pieces, garments that are soaked in historical meaning and significance. There are appropriate vestments for each level of service to the church, and additional ones for the celebrations of various periods and feast days, therefore vestments with saints displayed across them are not an uncommon sight to see. Here we will take a more detailed look at them and their importance in the church. At vestment.co.uk you can find vestments beautifully designed to represent the saints of the church.

Why Are The Saints Important?

Saints are considered to be particularly holy or to have an exceptional closeness to God, these are people who have lived lives of heroic virtue and have drawn people to prayer being recognized by ecclesiastical declaration of canonization. The saints are not chosen by the Pope; however he will simply canonize them to officialize what God has already done. Within Christianity the saints provide us an example of how to live our own lives. Saints provide a glimpse into what faith can do, and by looking at their lives we can learn from their history and the history of the church. Believers look to the saints for comfort, protection, and prayer, as the saints act as intermediaries to God himself.

Feast Days

There are many saintly feast days in the liturgical calendar, in fact the general Roman calendar states that there are over two hundred! Often large celebrations, and special vestments with saints, are reserved for the more important feasts such as those of John the Baptist and Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Local and native saints for a parish, or patron saints of a country are often highly celebrated as well, such as Saint Patrick or Saint George.

Perhaps the most venerated and holiest saint of all is the Virgin Mary, herself being honored by over twenty feast days across the liturgical year. Marian feast days, featuring so predominantly and being so abundant across the calendar, often call for specific colours to be worn, most often white with shades of blue as Mary is often depicted in blue robes. In terms of vestments with saints, Marian vestments are one of the more abundant.

Other colours play a role here too - alongside the blue of Marian feast days some vestments with saints on them are the colour red. Alongside being used during Pentecost, red is used for feasts of suffering, such as the feasts of the martyred saints. These are the saints who have given their lives for their beliefs, so the colour red is used to symbolize the blood that was spilled.

To Conclude

Saint days are scattered throughout the calendars of the church, and in fact there are often more days allocated to specific saints than there are not! Alongside this, saints are often held to the highest regard by members of the parish and are considered extremely important, oftentimes people pray or worship to specific saints that they hold close to their hearts. These are some of the reasons, alongside the actions of the saints in their own lives, that feast days celebrating the saints are considered incredibly important within the church.

Appropriate garb and vestments that feature saints will always be worn by members of the clergy, however due to the massive number of saints and vestments alike, oftentimes there will only be a few pieces devoted to several especially important saints. Vestments with saints are not only used in worship, but they function to signify to the congregation specific saints’ days and feasts, and to encourage members of the parish to discover more about them.