Yes, I know. But did God get the idea of festivals from the pagans, who had them previously? OK, snarky question, but you could say that God sanctified the idea of festivals to Himself (much as, through His Church, He sanctified other things); oddly, a couple of the Jewish festivals correspond with the dates of the wheat harvest and the barley harvest, which assuredly were celebrated first. And the pagans still had festivals before the sanctified festivals of the OT.
And if the Jews didn't have candles, they used "candlesticks" and oil lamps, and they certainly used incense in Temple worship. The Catholic Encyclopedia is just giving a cursory overview -- you can't pretend to believe that brief article is an exhaustive scholarly investigation.
Catholicism is not Judaism with a Latin accent.
No, it's not, but there's a surprising number of correspondences.
Even as Paul said, earlier quoted, the things the nations sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, and further that one could not eat at the table of God and that of demons at the same time. So, no, I couldn't say God sanctified the festivals of the pagans.
“The Catholic Encyclopedia is just giving a cursory overview — you can't pretend to believe that brief article is an exhaustive scholarly investigation.”
True, but you were provided with a scholarly investigation and that somehow wasn't acceptable.