Parishioners Eat Well to Aid Poor

Mary Bush happily forked over $5 to the concessionaire sitting in the St. Joseph Catholic Church hall Sunday and, holding her newly bought strawberry cake, approached the pink confection’s creator.

“This looks so good,” Bush told Mary Tufano, who watched her fellow parishioners scoop up dozens of baked goods piled onto the cross-shaped table in front of her.

“I’m going to serve this to company tonight,” Bush promised before heading out the door.

Tufano was pleased to see business so brisk--not so much because her fellow churchgoers were going to satiate a sweet tooth or two, but because the money that was being raised from the baked goods sale would eventually be used to help feed the poor.

As Catholic churches throughout Orange County on Sunday acknowledged the annual Feast of St. Joseph, the Placentia branch of the Italian Catholic Federation hoped to keep alive an age-old Sicilian custom of setting up a St. Joseph’s Table.

According to tradition, parishioners load a table with food, flowers, candles and a statue of St. Joseph--patron saint of Italy and, according to the New Testament, the provider for the Holy Family.

Goods donated to the table are sold to parishioners, and the money is used to help the needy.

St. Joseph’s Table evolved from a medieval custom among wealthier Sicilian families to allow the poor to sit at their dinner tables on March 19, the date of the Feast of St. Joseph. The event is to Italians what St. Patrick’s Day is to the Irish, said Joe Curiale, a member of the Italian Catholic Federation’s local branch, which sponsors the event each year on the Sunday closest to St. Joseph’s Day.

The tradition is still celebrated with gusto in Italy and in areas of the United States with sizable Italian communities, but St. Joseph’s tables have been all but abandoned in Orange County, said Ron Iadone, a member of the federation.

Locally, most St. Joseph’s Day tables are organized in homes today. There are only three or four churches in Orange County that set up a table, Iadone said. Of those, the one in Placentia is the largest.

Tufano’s husband John, who was born in Sicily, said he hopes the tradition of celebrating St. Joseph’s Day will grow in Orange County as more Catholics realize the day’s significance.

“It’s like a Mardi Gras in Sicily,” John Tufano said, lamenting that there are no local parades or other public festivities to mark the day. “It’s one of the main feasts.”

In San Juan Capistrano, for instance, the Feast of St. Joseph is more a day for bird watching. That is when the swallows traditionally complete the return trip from their winter migration to South America.

And despite efforts by Mission San Juan Capistrano to keep the day as reverential as possible, the swallows continue to reign on March 19. Thousands of spectators are expected to throng to the 214-year-old Spanish mission today to watch the swallows come back to Capistrano.

Organizers of Sunday’s St. Joseph’s Table in Placentia said that despite the waning popularity of the holiday, their group will continue to honor the day by keeping the tradition of extending a helping hand to the poor.

Curiale said the group expects to earn about $900 from the bake sale and a pasta dinner that was served next to the table all day long. The money will then be handed to the church.

“If someone knocks on the church door at midnight needing help, there will be money to give them,” Curiale said.

Immediately after the early morning Mass ended, Father John Ruhl, pastor of the 3,000-member congregation, gathered parishioners in the hall to offer a blessing over the festive-looking table.

After a short prayer and a reading from the Bible, Father Ruhl sprinkled holy water over the anisette cookies, ziti, egg bread, homemade pizza and other goodies. With a sweep of his hand, he gave a hearty amen and broke into a wide smile, recognizing that even charity can be offered with an appreciation of the gustatory.

“Now you can dig in,” he said.