The four candles on an Advent wreath are most commonly named hope, peace, joy, and love, one lit on each of the four Sundays before Christmas, and in many wreaths a fifth white candle stands in the center for Christmas itself. Many churches pair them with figures from the story — the prophets, Bethlehem, the shepherds, the angels — though the names, the order, and even the colors vary from one tradition to the next.
The wreath itself
Before the candles there is the circle. The wreath is evergreen and unbroken, and it is traditionally read that way: a ring with no beginning and no end, cut from a branch that stays green through the dead of winter. The custom of a candle-bearing Advent wreath is usually traced to Lutheran Germany in the nineteenth century, to Johann Hinrich Wichern, who in 1839 set candles on a wooden wheel at the Rauhes Haus in Hamburg so the children in his care could count the days — a large candle for each Sunday of the season and a small one for each day between. The evergreens came later, and the four-candle wreath familiar today is a simplification of that first crowded wheel.
What each candle is said to mean
The first candle is usually called hope, or the Prophecy candle, for the long waiting of Israel: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined" (Isaiah 9:2).
The second is peace, the Bethlehem candle, for the town the prophet names: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel" (Micah 5:2).
The third is joy, the Shepherds' candle, and where colored candles are used this is the rose one. Its Sunday is called Gaudete, from the Latin opening of the day's introit, which takes its words from Philippians 4:4: "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice." Where Advent is kept as a penitential season, the rose lightens the darker violet of the weeks around it — an easing granted before the waiting is over. It answers the angel to the shepherds: "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:10).
The fourth is love, the Angels' candle, kept for the last Sunday, when the waiting is nearly over.
The fifth, white and set in the middle where a wreath has one, is the Christ candle, lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and often left to burn through the days that follow.
The names and colors are not universal
This is worth saying plainly, because much writing on the subject asserts one scheme as though it were fixed. Roman Catholic parishes commonly use three violet candles and one rose. Many Anglican and Lutheran congregations use blue rather than purple, to keep Advent distinct from Lent; others keep violet. The hope-peace-joy-love naming is widespread in evangelical and nondenominational churches, but it is not the only sequence: some orders name the second candle faith, or love, and give peace to the fourth, and some name a candle for John the Baptist, whose preaching fills the readings of the middle Sundays, or for Mary. The two systems do not always line up either, since the prophets-Bethlehem-shepherds-angels set is often paired with a different run of virtues than the one above. Even the length of the preparation varies: four Sundays is the Western pattern, while the Ambrosian rite and the Eastern churches keep longer fasts before the Nativity. If you are lighting a wreath at home and want it to match your congregation, the surest thing is to ask them.
Lighting them one at a time
The practice is cumulative, and that is most of the point. On the first Sunday one candle is lit, and only one. On the second, the first is lit again and the second joins it. By the fourth Sunday four are burning, and on Christmas all five. Over four weeks the room grows brighter while the days outside grow shorter; the season makes its argument by light rather than by explanation. In 2026, Advent begins on Sunday, November 29 — the fourth Sunday before Christmas — and runs through Christmas Eve, December 24.
If you want to keep the days and not only the Sundays, Seraph has a Candle-Lighting Calendar that runs December 1 through 25, which is not the same as the liturgical season, and we would rather say so than blur the two. It sits inside Sacred Seasons, which opens with Seraph+ ($59.99 a year or $6.99 a month, auto-renewing until you cancel). The complete King James Bible is free and bundled offline in the iPhone app, every reading plan is free, and there is no account of any kind. There is more about Advent in Seraph, and a shorter note on when Advent starts in 2026, if either would help.