November 27, 2023
To shorten his students’ wait for Christmas, Protestant theologian Johann Wichern celebrated a devotion every day during Advent in 1840 and lit a candle. The students placed the candles in the bush. This resulted in today’s Advent wreath with four candles. © Diocese of Linz/Appenzeller
Advent is the time of preparation for Christmas; For the Catholic Church, the weeks leading up to Christmas are an intense period. The Latin word “adventus” means arrival. At Christmas, Christians celebrate that God became human in his son Jesus. In waiting for the Savior, the human desire for the fulfillment of pending happiness becomes evident.
Waiting is also associated with the experience that not all happiness is in our hands, but that it requires other people, gifted times and places, and God’s care. It is up to us to adopt an attitude that facilitates the perception of the divine in our lives.
God’s care is surprising, sometimes strange, everyday, and freeing. Advent can convey to people the need to be open and allow happiness to be given to them. The Romans referred to a ruler’s first official visit or an emperor’s accession to the throne as an “adventus.”
The earliest Advent period is attested in Spain, where a fourteen-day period of preparation was celebrated before the feast of the “Appearance of the Lord” on January 6. In Rome, under Pope Gregory I in the sixth century, four Sunday masses with Advent songs were celebrated before Christmas. Advent developed differently in Gaul; Here this time was celebrated as Lent.
Four candles as a symbol of Christ
Today, Advent is described in the liturgy as a time of preparation and expectation. With the 1st Sunday of Advent – this year on December 3rd – the new liturgical ecclesial year begins for the church.
Four candles are lit one after the other in the Advent wreath as a sign of Christ, the “fullness of light”. The blessing of Advent wreaths and candles at services on the first weekend of Advent in dark, wintry churches is a sign of hope.
The Advent wreath is a recent tradition. The Protestant theologian Johann Wichern (+1881) wanted to shorten the time until Christmas in a student house. Since 1840 he celebrated a devotion every day of Advent and lit a candle. Students placed these 24 candles on branches. Thus the precursor to the crown and the Advent calendar was invented. The first Advent wreath in a Catholic church was only used in 1924 in Cologne.
The third candle in the Advent wreath is usually a different color because the third Sunday of Advent is about the joy of the coming Christmas.