Advent at Home

What Advent is

The Church’s year does not begin on January 1 but on the First Sunday of Advent, the Sunday falling on or nearest to November 30. Advent runs until the evening of December 24, when the celebration of Christmas begins. Its name comes from the Latin adventus, “coming.”

The season looks in two directions at once. It prepares us to celebrate Christ’s first coming, when the Son of God was born at Bethlehem, and it turns our hearts toward his second coming in glory at the end of time. The Catechism explains that in Advent the Church “makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming” (CCC 524). Saint Bernard of Clairvaux spoke of a third, hidden coming between the two: Christ’s coming into our hearts here and now, through grace.

Advent has two parts. Until December 16 the readings dwell on watchfulness and the Lord’s return. From December 17 to 24 they focus directly on the events leading to the Nativity: the genealogy of Jesus, the annunciations to Joseph, Zechariah, and Mary, the Visitation, and the birth of John the Baptist.

Advent is a penitential season, but it is not a second Lent. The Church’s norms call it “a period of devout and expectant delight” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 39). The priest wears violet, the Gloria is omitted on Sundays so that it rings out anew at Christmas, and the church is decorated with restraint. The Alleluia is still sung. On the Third Sunday, called Gaudete (“Rejoice”) after the first word of its entrance antiphon (Philippians 4:4), rose vestments may be worn as a sign that the Lord is near.

There is no longer a required Advent fast, but the season is a natural time for prayer, almsgiving, simplifying, and especially for going to Confession before Christmas. Many parishes hold Advent penance services for this reason.

Advent 2026 at a glance

Saint Nicholas (December 6) and Saint Lucy (December 13) fall on Sundays in 2026, so their memorials are not celebrated at Mass this year. Check your parish bulletin for Mass times, and the USCCB daily readings for the full texts.

The Advent wreath

The Advent wreath is a circle of evergreens holding four candles, one for each Sunday of Advent. The evergreen speaks of life that does not die; the circle, of God’s eternal love; and the growing light, of the coming of Christ, the Light of the world, into our darkness. Traditionally three candles are violet and one is rose, lit on the Third Sunday. Some families add a white candle in the center to light on Christmas.

The custom as we know it is fairly recent. It is usually traced to Johann Hinrich Wichern, a Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, who in 1839 hung a cartwheel with candles in the orphanage he ran, lighting one more each day so that the children could count the days to Christmas. Over the following century it was simplified to four candles and was taken up by Catholic families, first in Germany and then around the world. The Church’s Book of Blessings now includes an order for blessing an Advent wreath, usually led by a priest or deacon, and the USCCB’s Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers gives a simple form that a parent can lead at home.

How to keep it: gather once a day, often at the evening meal, light the candles for the current week, read a short passage of Scripture (such as the coming Sunday’s Gospel or the day’s Jesse Tree reading below), pray, and sing a verse of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” A simple prayer for each week follows; any family may use or adapt it.

The Jesse Tree

The Jesse Tree takes its name from the prophecy of Isaiah: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11:1). Jesse was the father of King David, from whose family the Messiah would come. In the Middle Ages, artists showed the ancestors of Christ as a great tree growing from the sleeping Jesse; one of the most famous examples fills a stained-glass window of Chartres Cathedral.

As a family devotion, the Jesse Tree is a branch, a small tree, or a tree drawn on paper, on which a new ornament is hung each day of Advent. Each ornament stands for a person or event in salvation history, and the family reads the matching passage of Scripture. Day by day the whole story unfolds, from Creation to Bethlehem, showing how God prepared the world for the coming of his Son. Children can make the ornaments themselves from paper or felt.

The day-by-day guide below gives one figure, reading, and symbol for each day from December 1 to 24. From December 17 the readings match the Gospel of the day’s Mass.

The O Antiphons

From December 17 to 23, the Church’s Evening Prayer (Vespers) sings a special antiphon before and after Mary’s song, the Magnificat. Each begins with “O” and calls on Christ by a title drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, ending with a plea: “Come!” The same verses, slightly shortened, are used as the Gospel acclamation at Mass on those days. They date back at least to the eighth century, and the beloved hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is a paraphrase of them.

Medieval writers noticed a hidden message. Take the first letter of each title after the “O”: Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, Emmanuel. Read backward, they spell ERO CRAS, Latin for “Tomorrow I will be there.” The day after the last antiphon is Christmas Eve.

The Latin texts are those of the Liturgy of the Hours; the English renderings are our own literal translations.

Other Advent customs

Saint Nicholas (December 6). The fourth-century bishop of Myra, remembered for his secret generosity to the poor, is the origin of Santa Claus. In many families children set out their shoes the night before and find them filled with small gifts and treats in the morning, a reminder that every good gift comes from God.

The Immaculate Conception (December 8). In the middle of Advent the Church celebrates the first moment of Mary’s life, when God preserved her from all stain of original sin by the foreseen merits of her Son, preparing a fitting mother for the Savior. It is a Holy Day of Obligation and the patronal feast of the United States. (It is not the conception of Jesus, which is celebrated on March 25.) See Mary, Mother of God.

Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12). The Virgin Mary appeared in 1531 to Saint Juan Diego, an Indigenous convert, on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City, and left her image on his cloak. She is Patroness of the Americas, and her feast is kept with special devotion by Mexican and Mexican-American Catholics. See Marian Apparitions.

Saint Lucy (December 13). The young martyr of Syracuse, whose name means “light,” is honored especially in Scandinavia and Italy, where the eldest daughter may serve the family breakfast wearing a crown of candles.

Las Posadas and Simbang Gabi (December 16–24). In the Mexican tradition of Las Posadas (“the inns”), neighbors walk in procession on nine nights, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter in Bethlehem, singing at doors until they are welcomed in. In the Philippines, Simbang Gabi is a novena of nine Masses before dawn, and Filipino communities in the United States often keep it in the evening.

Rorate Masses. In many places, especially in Central Europe and increasingly in the United States, an early-morning Mass is celebrated in Advent by candlelight alone, the light growing as dawn comes. In the 1962 Missal this is the votive Mass of Our Lady in Advent, whose entrance antiphon begins Rorate caeli desuper, “Drop down dew, you heavens, from above” (Isaiah 45:8). In the Ordinary Form, parishes usually celebrate the Mass of the Advent weekday in the same candlelit setting. See the Traditional Latin Mass.

The Saint Andrew Christmas Novena. A popular devotion begins on the feast of Saint Andrew, November 30, and continues until Christmas. The following prayer is traditionally said fifteen times each day, often with a personal intention:

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of his blessed Mother. Amen.

An empty manger. Some families set up the Nativity scene at the start of Advent but leave the manger empty, adding a piece of straw for each act of kindness or sacrifice, so that the Christ Child has a soft bed when he is placed there on Christmas Eve.

Day-by-day guide to Advent 2026

Each day lists the liturgical celebration, the Gospel of the day’s Mass, and the Jesse Tree figure.

Gospel references follow the Lectionary for Mass; on optional memorials the readings are usually those of the Advent weekday. Verse numbers follow the Revised Standard Version (Catholic Edition), so a few differ slightly from the Lectionary (for example, Isaiah 9:2–7 is Isaiah 9:1–6 in some Bibles).

Explore the Liturgical Year