Altar candle

In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, candles are required to be placed on or beside the altar, at least for the celebration of Mass.

For reasons of religious tradition, the Church used the candles at divine service that are made of beeswax.

[3] Lighted candles of the correct composition (beeswax, with no more than a minimal admixture of other material, and usually bleached) were considered so essential that, if before the consecration they happened to go out (quenched, for instance, by a gust of wind) and could not be relit within fifteen minutes, the celebration of Mass had to be abandoned, and some writers maintained that even if the candles could be relit within that time, Mass should in any case be begun again from the start.

There is also a rule given in the same section of this Roman Missal that "a candle to be lit at the elevation of the Sacrament" should be placed with the cruets of wine and water to the Epistle side of the altar.

Percy Dearmer, author of The Parson's Handbook, states that English use supports no more than two lights on the altar.

The use of a row of six candlesticks on the altar, or on a shelf or gradine behind it, is pure Romanism, and a defiance of the Ornaments Rubric, as of all other authority in the Church of England.

Any one within reach of a large picture-gallery can verify this for himself; in the National Gallery, for instance, there are many illustrations of great interest in the Flemish, German, and Italian rooms and among the drawings of the Arundel collection.

"[8] He concludes: A church may therefore have (1) two lights on the altar; (2) two standards on the pavement, or four if the sanctuary is large enough (as is seldom the case) for their comely arrangement without overcrowding; (3) other lights near but not behind the altar (preferably two or four on the rods or pillars for the riddels) for use on the principal feasts; (4) others hanging from the roof in candelabra.

They are topped with a brass or glass candle follower, which helps keep wax from spilling on the altar linens.