The Advent wreath came into use among German Christians in the nineteenth century and spread through Europe and the Americas until it became one of the most widespread of all Advent customs, kept in churches, schools, and above all in homes. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy treats it as a genuine expression of the season: the progressive lighting of the four candles, one on each Sunday, symbolizes the various stages of salvation history before Christ and the light of the Redeemer's coming, growing week by week into the world. The form is simple. A circle of evergreen branches, whose unbroken shape suggests eternity and whose greenery suggests life that does not fail in winter, holds four candles. The common custom uses three violet candles and one rose candle, the rose lit on the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, when rose vestments may be worn; other colors are used in some places, and a white candle is sometimes added in the center for Christmas Day. Popular practice attaches themes such as hope, peace, joy, and love to the successive candles; these are pious customs, edifying but not prescribed by any liturgical book. The Book of Blessings provides a rite for blessing an Advent wreath, ordinarily used before the First Sunday of Advent or at its Masses. It also provides a form that a lay person may use, which makes the wreath a natural centerpiece of family prayer: a parent may bless it, and the family may light the candles at the evening meal with a short Scripture reading and prayer through the four weeks. Where a wreath is placed in a church, it should not obscure the altar, ambo, or the movement of the ministers, and it should not become the visual center of the sanctuary, which belongs to the altar. The custom is valuable precisely because it is small and daily. Advent asks for watchfulness in the ordinary conditions of life, and a wreath on a kitchen table teaches that better than any explanation: the light increases quietly, week by week, until the season of waiting gives way to the celebration of the Nativity.

Symbolism

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Advent

symbolism