c a n d l e : four

what the love candle teaches us

part 1 here | part 2 here | part 3 here

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By the fourth Sunday of Advent, the room has changed.

Three candles are already burning now, Hope, Peace, and Joy, their flames overlapping, softening the shadows, warming the space between them. The light no longer feels tentative and expectant. And still, one candle remains unlit. The Love candle waits hovering right at the edge of incarnation.

This series has been an invitation to let the Advent candles themselves become our teachers as we wait in this season. Not just symbols we glance at once a week, but metaphors we sit with. The order they are lit. The way they burn. The patience they demand. All of it is part of the tradition that can quietly shape our interior lives if we let it. And now, the impending fourth candle brings with it an unsettling, and freeing invitation.

What strikes me as I contemplate the love candle is how it’s being lit toward the end of the path. If love is the source of all things, why does it appear too late in Advent? Perhaps this candle is introduced near the end of the journey, not because love has been absent or because it matters less, but because it reveals something honest about the spiritual journey itself. Love is often the hardest thing to receive on the journey.

As I sit with people in my spiritual direction office the deepest struggle often arises when they are invited to fully embody their belovedness. Dreaming, hoping, and growing in myriad ways can feel energizing, even inspiring. But when the invitation turns toward receiving love freely, without earning it, without proving worth or securing a place in the world, something tightens. Receiving love as a sheer gift is often the hardest work of all.

I can’t help but wonder if the placement of the love candle near the end of Advent is simply an honest reflection of the spiritual path. Love is not absent at the beginning, but it is often the last thing we are ready to receive. And so it is with Christ: always present, always being born in our story, yet often slow to be welcomed.

The candle has always been there, waiting to be lit. Love does not force its way in; it lights up only when there is space for it to be truly embraced. The long work of hoping, the quiet endurance of peace, the surprising light of joy; all of it prepares the heart for Love to enter, not as an idea, but as a presence that can be experienced.

Advent doesn’t begin with love. It begins with Hope. The fragile willingness to imagine that something good is possible. Hope cracks the door. Peace follows, not as calm, but as steadiness that lets us remain in the room even when things are unresolved. Joy sparks after that, reminding us we are alive, still capable of delight. Each candle shapes the space for Love to be welcomed.

Each lighting of the candles exposes us to the rhythm of a healthy Spiritual formation. Each of these experiences is part of the long work of shaping the soul ultimately preparing the heart to receive Love. Love not as a concept, or something earned, but as a presence we can truly inhabit. They teach us to notice, to wait, to endure, and to trust small openings of grace before demanding full illumination.

Love asks us to let go of the false selves we’ve built to survive, to risk disappointment, and to allow ourselves to be claimed—not for what we do, but because we are beloved. The journey through Hope, Peace, and Joy is what creates the interior space for Love to finally arrive fully, not forced, not fragile, but enduring and true.

The love candle reveals what has always been true. Love has been quietly pulling us along the journey from the very beginning. It is not the start we recognize, but the force that shapes every step. Hope opens the door, Peace steadying the heart, Joy surprising us with light in the darkness. Each of these experiences teaches us how to let love in, how to make space for it, how to receive it without grasping, earning, or performing.

By the time the Love candle is lit, we are no longer strangers to the warmth of the fire. We have learned to hope without certainty, to rest without control, to delight even amid struggle. And in that readiness, Christ arrives, not as an idea, not as a doctrine, but as an experience. Love made flesh.

The long path through Hope, Peace, and Joy has been nothing less than preparation: formation in the art of receiving what has always been ours. Love does not demand our achievement or force its way in. It waits. It pulls. It transforms us. And when we finally welcome it, we see that the journey has always been about moving toward this presence, the Light that is Life itself. Advent ends not at the candle, but in the knowing: we have been beloved all along, and now we can start to finally recognize it.