An Advent wreath is a ring of evergreen branches holding four candles, three violet and one rose, lit one at a time over the four Sundays before Christmas. You can set one up at home without asking anyone's permission. There is no rule that says a wreath only belongs in a church, and the custom started in households long before it moved into sanctuaries.
If you are the only Catholic in your house, or your spouse is not religious, this is still yours to do. You can light the candles alone at the kitchen table after dinner. The wreath does not need an audience to work.
The custom is usually traced to sixteenth-century Germany, where Lutheran families kept a wooden ring with candles through December and counted down the days to Christmas. By the 1800s it had spread into Catholic homes and parishes, and German immigrants carried it to the United States.
Nothing about the wreath is ancient. It is a devotional custom, not a sacrament, which is why the Church leaves the details to you. The evergreens stand for life that does not die back in winter. The circle has no start and no end.
Four candles mark the four Sundays of Advent, which begins on the Sunday closest to November 30 and runs to Christmas Eve. Each week carries a word: hope on the first Sunday, peace on the second, joy on the third, love on the fourth. You light one candle the first week, two the second, three the third, all four on the last Sunday before Christmas.
The third candle is rose, not violet, because that Sunday is Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means rejoice, taken from the entrance antiphon of that Mass. The rose candle is a small break in the penitential mood, a reminder that Christmas is close.
You need an evergreen ring, four candle holders set into it, and four candles: three violet, one rose. Rings and candle sets show up in parish halls through November, often sold by the women's guild as a fundraiser, and they cost less than the religious goods catalogs. Any craft store greenery works if the parish has sold out.
Violet is the traditional color, though some places sell deep purple and call it violet. If you can only find blue, use blue. The point is the difference between the three and the one rose candle, which should stand out when you light it.
Set the wreath on a stable table where the candles will not tip, away from curtains. Many families put it on the dining table and light it at supper. Keep matches somewhere you can reach without leaning over the flames.
A blessing is customary, not required. In most US and UK parishes the wreaths are blessed at the first Mass of Advent, usually the Saturday vigil or the Sunday morning Mass, and you carry yours up or hold it in the pew. If you buy yours after that Mass, ask the parish office whether the priest can bless it after a weekday Mass.
At home, the blessing can be done by a priest, a deacon, or the head of the household. The Book of Blessings allows a layperson to bless the family wreath, and the usual form is a short prayer and a sprinkling with holy water. If you have no holy water, pray the prayer anyway. The blessing is a request for God's favor on the household, not a switch that turns the wreath on.
If you live alone, light the candle at the same time each week, Sunday evening after dark works well. Say the prayer out loud. It sounds strange the first week. By the third it will not.
If your spouse or children are not Catholic, do not turn it into a liturgy they have to perform. Invite them to sit for two minutes. Let a child blow out the candle. Read the Sunday's word, hope or peace, and leave it there. Nobody needs a homily at the table.
The wreath stays up through Christmas Eve and can stay through the Christmas season, which ends with the Baptism of the Lord in January. Some families light all four candles on Christmas Day and leave the wreath on the table until the tree comes down.
Then take it apart. The greens go into the yard waste or the compost. The candle stubs can be saved and melted down, or simply thrown out. Many parishes collect old candle stubs for the paschal candle, so ask before you toss them. Keep the ring and the holders for next year.
Isaiah 64:1-9 and Mark 13:33-37
Advent opens with a strange kind of prayer. Israel is not asking for presents. It is asking God to come and to find them where they are, which is a place they are not proud of. Watch, the Gospel says, and the watching is not passive. It means keeping your attention on something you cannot see yet. Hope in Scripture is not a mood. It is a decision to keep facing the right direction while nothing seems to be moving.
Lord God, you have promised to come, and we have been waiting a long time.
Give us the patience of people who know they are waited for by you.
Where we have stopped expecting anything, come and surprise us.
Where our hope has gone quiet, light it again.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 and Mark 1:1-8
A voice cries in the wilderness: prepare the way. Every valley filled, every mountain brought low, the road made straight. This is not tidying up for a guest. It is demolition work. The wilderness in this reading is the state of the ground between you and the people you love. Peace usually arrives after somebody has walked the distance first, and often that somebody has to be the one who is not at fault.
Lord, you promised that the crooked would be made straight.
Show us the road we have left broken.
Give us the humility to be first to speak, and the honesty to say exactly what we did.
Where peace is impossible by our own strength, do what only you can do.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11 and John 1:6-8, 19-28
Gaudete means rejoice, and this Sunday the Church breaks the purple with a rose candle. The joy here has nothing to do with how the week went. It sits on top of everything going badly. John the Baptist, who lived on locusts, is the happiest man in the Gospel of John because he knows exactly who he is and who he is not: I am not the Christ, I am a voice. Half of our unhappiness comes from answering a question nobody asked. Joy starts when you stop auditioning.
Lord, you are the light that John came to announce.
Teach us to be content with being a voice, and not the Word.
Take away the need to be seen, and give us back the freedom to be glad.
Let there be joy in our homes that does not depend on the news.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-11, 16 and Luke 1:26-38
The fourth week gives us the shortest and largest answer in Scripture. Mary is told what will happen to her, and she is told that it will cost her everything she had planned. Her answer is four words long. Love in the Gospel is not a feeling that arrives first and makes obedience easy. It is a yes spoken before the feeling arrives, and the feeling comes afterwards, in the ordinary days of the following thirty years.
Lord, you asked a young woman in a village and she said yes.
Give us the same readiness without the same excuses.
Where we have said no because we were afraid, say it again to us.
Make our love more like a decision than a mood.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(This prayer is written by our team, not an official text of the Church.)
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Yes. A wreath at home is a devotion, not a liturgy. Any Catholic can set one up and light it. The head of the household can bless it with holy water, and a priest or deacon can bless it too if one is available.
Violet is the tradition, with one rose candle for the third Sunday. If you cannot find violet, blue is commonly used in some places. What matters is that the third candle is visibly different from the other three.
One candle on the first Sunday of Advent, two on the second, three on the third, four on the fourth. Many families light them at the evening meal. Light them at the same time each week if you can.
Ask the parish office. A priest or deacon can bless your wreath after a weekday Mass, and if that is not possible, you can bless it at home with holy water and the prayer from the Book of Blessings.
Leave it up through the Christmas season, which ends with the Baptism of the Lord in January. Then remove the greens, save or discard the candle stubs, and keep the ring and holders for next year.
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