Q: I hope this email finds you well. I have a question. I know that white vestments are used during the liturgy during Easter, Christmas, various solemnities and holy days and funerals. However, can white be worn during ordinary time to honor a specific localized event. For instance, if residents in the parish neighborhood are recently murdered and the communion service/mass is celebrated to recognize the tragedy and honor the victims? If the State executes an individual and the liturgy is celebrated to remember the victim?
If not white, would any other color be ok? Red? Black (to emphasize mourning)?
Thanks for your continued guidance.
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A: God bless you for your neighborhood ministry.
For a communion service led by a deacon, you may always wear white. The variety of vestment colors pertains more to Mass.
The situations you describe could be acknowledged with a Mass for the Dead. It may be celebrated on many days. Exceptions are listed in GIRM 380: “It may be celebrated on any day except for Solemnities that are Holydays of Obligation, Thursday of Holy Week, the Paschal Triduum, and the Sundays of Advent, Lent, and Easter, with due regard also for all the other requirements of the norm of the law.”
White, violet or black vestments may be worn, but in the US we generally wear white for a Mass for the Dead.