A cardinal feature of many premodern religious traditions is to live in close alignment with seasonal cycles. This isn't strictly to revere and worship nature for its own sake always but serves a practical purpose for all ancient peoples who live and die by harvests and famines.
Even the ancient Israelites were unable to avoid relating with these kinds of themes and using agrarian language to express their ideas.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
Compared to modern forms of Christianity which can be quite disconnected from thinking about what time of year it is, Catholicism is quite old, and therefore it is also a salient feature of the church to have the entire year mapped out by days which are intended for feasting, fasting, mourning, rejoicing, and so forth.
From the outside it can seem like there are two religious holidays: Christmas and Easter. How boring that must seem to you if you are drawn to solstices and equinoxes. In Catholicism the year is divided into distinct seasons under the liturgical calandar. Each has it's own prescribed practices and emotional tenor.
- Advent
- Christmas
- Lent
- Easter
- Ordinary Time
unfinished
for now :)