This GCSE RE quiz on Catholicism takes a look at festivals and celebrations. Just about everybody loves a Festival (with the possible exception of Dickens’ infamous Scrooge, until almost the end of ‘A Christmas Carol’) ~ Catholics as much as anyone. Indeed, besides the fairly obvious ones such as Christmas and Easter, they enjoy opportunities to celebrate perhaps a richer range of feasts (and occasional fasts) than many other religious observants.
As with many faiths, these celebrations can broadly be divided into those that come round almost regardless, annually (e.g. Harvest), and the once-in-a-lifetime ones such as First Communion and the Nuptial Mass. The former occasions form part of the cycle of the Liturgical Year, itself evolved from a number of sources including Judaeo-Christianity (Easter and Pentecost) and the rhythm of the meteorological and agricultural year.
The various key moments in the earthly life of Jesus (Christmas and Easter, preceded respectively by the penitential preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent) provide the Temporal Cycle, and the death anniversaries (usually) of His diligent followers the Saints make up the Sanctoral Cycle.
Alongside all this, individual congregants will be born, reach relative maturity within the faith community, maybe marry or take Holy Orders, and eventually die; and their Church has the wish, and the liturgical wherewithal, to help them mark such milestones.