Advent Calendar XXII

Today is the forth Sunday in Advent so it's time to light the forth candle on our advent crown. The fourth candle of Advent represents Love, the ultimate love of God that He might send His only Son for us. Called the “Angel's Candle,” the fourth candle of Advent is lit the Sunday before Christmas, and it is the color purple, leading us to eagerly await the new Kingdom of God on earth.

Our Advent crowns can take many forms, but the common factors are the five candles, one for each of the four Sundays and the fifth for Christmas day. The first candle for hope, the hope that Christ brings to the World at Christmas and fulfills at Easter. The second candle is for the faith that gives us strength, and the third for joy, then on Christmas day itself we light the fifth, white candle which represents Christ himself, the light of the World.

Unless you were brought up in a Church going family in UK there is a fair chance that your first introduction to an Advent Crown would have been on Blue Peter, each year they would make a crown out of wire coat hangers and tinsel, and light a candle each of the four weeks before Christmas, but I can't remember them ever explaining why, or what the significance was ~ maybe that's just a failure of my memory, that happens at my age!