Feast of St. Joseph

March 19th is the day the Catholic church celebrates the feast day of Saint Joseph. My Sicilian grandfather Giuseppe (Joseph) was born on St. Joseph's Day, so its a day we noted in my family. In the Italian culture there is a tradition of the Saint Joseph's Day Table. The story goes like this: in the Middle Ages there was a terrible drought in Sicily and the people prayed a novena to St. Joseph. When the rains came ending the drought they created a special feast day to honor Joseph. The tradition includes a great table laden with traditional Italian foods and included feeding the poor.

We participated in a St. Joseph's Day celebration at St. Rita's tonight. Not only were there a lot of people there, there was indeed tons of food. There was a large alter set up with candles and a statue of St. Joseph. There were also flowers and loaves of shaped breads. The surrounding tables held lots of pastas with vegetables, white pizza, braided breads, frittatas, quiches, greens & beans, deep-fried vegetables, and even salmon. (There are no meats or red sauce at a St. Joseph table). And then there were the desserts! Pizzelles, of course, but also honey balls and sphingi, cannoli, cakes and cookies. We did not have a lot of poor people there, but there was a collection for House of Hope and Comfort Care Home, so that counts. It was amazing how many Italian folks there were tonight, luckily for us sharing their delicious foods. And did I mention the wine? Anyway it was all lots of fun. We stayed to help clean up (the only "young folks" who did) and on the way home Josh thought that was the best part.