Happy St. Joseph's Day

Warm and lovely, St. Joseph's Day came once again to New Orleans and the challenge was to visit as many altars as possible. With an early-morning pastoral care issue I had to deal with that went til after 1:30 pm, Big Man and I did not get rolling until midafternoon, but we did not let that dampen our spirits.

Our first visit was within our own neighborhood: the beautiful St. Mary's Assumption Church in the Irish Channel, the historic German-Catholic church across the street from the Irish St. Alphonsus Catholic Church (in those days, Catholic congregations were usually segregated by ethnicity and/or language, even though the masses were said entirely in Latin). On our way inside, we admired the fine old brickwork. Big Man said, "One of these days, we have to take some time to do a Gorgeous Old New Orleans Church tour." We agreed that such a thing would take more than one day.

The St. Joseph altar was set up in front of the statue of St. Joseph, just as you entered at the side door of the church. It seemed to me to be smaller than previous years, but was laden with all the classic accoutrements of a traditional St. Joseph altar: stuffed artichokes, Italian breads shaped as shepherd's crooks and crosses, the Lamb of God cake covered in shredded coconut "wool." bakery-style cakes in the shape of books with a holy card on one side and "St. Joseph Pray for Us" inscribed in icing on the other, plates of Italian cookies, bottles of Italian wine, fresh fruit and greenery, vases of green palm fronds, and small bowls filled with fava beans. There were also a few localisms, such as the breads shaped like a snapping turtle and a gator. As we admired the display, one of the women by the altar admired my Italian-American medallion beads, which I caught at St. Joseph's Parade either last year or the year before. I was glad I had made sure to put them on before leaving the house.

Along the communion rail of the main altar of the church, there were plates of cucidati (wonderful iced fig cookies) and reginas (hard biscuits covered in sesame seeds), meringues, and those really hard Italian cookies that could break a tooth. Over by the door to the Blessed Father Seelos shrine, they had a table with the little brown bags of cookies adorned with holy pictures of St. Joseph. I was careful to choose a holy card of St. Joseph at work, because right now Big Man is going through a work issue. I figured a little intercession by St. Joseph the Worker might help, and certainly couldn't hurt. (I also made a petition to Blessed Father Seelos -- in for a penny, and so on.) We greeted a parishioner of mine who was coming in from the church's backyard, where the big St. Joseph's lunch was being served; it looked great, but we had already eaten. (We ate there 2 years ago and it was both cheap and fantastic. A small family of parakeets lives in one of the tall palm trees back there, and it was fun to watch them flying around.)

We strolled the church afterwards, carefully perusing each stained glass, Big Man checking out all the German names and dedications. The stained glass, the ornate ribbing and corbels and vaulting -- St. Mary's is truly impressive and inspiring, especially once you know the story of those immigrant German families banding together to raise the money and physically help build the church.

Next, we headed to the massive St. Joseph Church near Tulane and South Claiborne, that so many many cars pass by unknowingly on the interstate. After we parked, we walked around the side of the church. As we approached the front door, Big Man asked wonderingly, "This is just a church? It's not a cathedral?" I assured him it was just a parish church -- but you did have to say it had to have once been a VERY prosperous parish indeed to have erected such a behemoth. Once Inside, some nice church ladies handed us slips of paper for prayer petitions, which we filled out using golf pencils. We walked down a side aisle, enjoying the recorded music (a soprano singing hymns in Italian). It was then that I noticed that the plywood panels had been removed from the stained glass windows on the interstate-Claiborne side of the church. The last time we had been there was 2 St. Joseph's ago, so some time in that interval the post-K repairs had been completed, and all the beautiful windows were on display, the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through.

The altar was much bigger and more elaborate than at St. Mary's, with more of everything and giant floral displays and candles available for purchase on the cross-shaped table arrangement. I took a picture with my iPhone, respectfully waiting til the devout had finished their prayers kneeling at the rail. A basket big enough to hold laundry sat on the step, filled with yellow and orange prayer petitions, and we added ours to the pile. St. Joseph, pray for us!

We sat for a while in prayer in the old wooden pews, and walked slowly down the center aisle, "reading" the story of Jesus's life being told in the stained glass windows. We were a little disappointed that there were no give-away bags of cookies at this altar (but apparently there had been a luncheon by donation at the Rebuild Center directly behind the church following the Mass for St. Joseph that had been held at 12:15 pm), and to tell the truth, I had already scarfed up nearly all the cookies we got from St. Mary's. So we decided to head to Brocato's on Carrollton for serious-sized bags of St. Joseph's goodies.

It was, of course, packed at Brocato's. We ended up parking in the back lot of the brand-new Walgreen's at Canal and Carrollton and walking over. Brocato's had a tiny altar at the back of the store, up the one or two steps to the elevated portion of tables. As small as it was, it had a nice selection of goodies, and the Lamb of God coconut cake looked especially good (some people are chintzy with the coconut, but this little lamb was really lush). We waited in line, with varying degrees of patience (guess which one of us was the more patient!), to purchase our bags of cucidati and reginas while other folks got boxes of cannoli and pastries, cones of gelati, and little cups of expresso.

A young woman recognized me from my work with Interfaith Worker Justice and we talked a bit. She and her friend really didn't know much about St. Joseph's Day traditions, and the little altar there at Brocato's was the only one they had seen. I gave them the paper history I had picked up at St. Joseph's and recommended they go there.

We headed home, eating cookies pretty much the whole way. It was a miracle we got home with any left.

That evening, we had been invited to a home altar by our friend the jazz poet RC. It was to be my first time in many years seeing a St. Joseph's altar in a private home, and I was excited. The home was a raised cottage in Broadmoor, and parking was at a premium. A little boy, about 10 or so, was directing traffic, and saying, "Are you here for the altar? It's right there!" Looked like about 50 people, men, women, and children, old and young, were squeezed into the front porch, living room and dining room. The altar had three levels, the first being set as a dining area for the "holy family;" the second, slightly higher, with lots of food and candles and framed holy pictures, and then the third, quite high, about my eye level, with the largest display loaves of bread, tall candles, floral arrangements, and cakes.

The lady of the house went around lighting the candles as darkness fell, and the time came for the ritual. The priest from St. Patrick's Church downtown led us in the traditional St. Joseph's Blessing, asking a benediction on the food, the people who made it, the people who will eat it, and all those in the world who hunger and thirst for both nourishment and justice. There were lots of litanies, and then we ended with the Lord's Prayer (omitting the Protestant "kingdom, power and glory forever and ever"). After that, and several children were dressed in renditions of "Holy Land" costumes, with pieces of fabric over their heads, secured by satin ties, and tunics or sashes indicating Middle Eastern garb. The boy and girl portraying Joseph and Mary, Joseph bearing a large wooden staff, went from room to room, asking for a place to stay for the night, first knocking boldly with the staff. Twice they are turned away. Then, they knock a third time and are admitted and brought to the dining table to be fed. This ritual is known to Sicilian New Orleanians (of whom our friend RC is one) as the "tupa tupa."

The host announced that the altar food and the food in the next room was a "free for all," and the assembled crowd fell upon the food. Oh my god. There was a giant whole baked fish (I only got a small bite of that), a big stainless steel bowl of green salad with olives and cheese and pepperoni on top, containers of angel hair pasta, crawfish cream sauce, shrimp and mushroom sauce, traditional milanese sauce, eggplant parm, fried cauliflower and broccoli, casseroles of green beans covered with cheese, trays of fresh hot anchovy bread, meatless marinara sauce (called "red gravy" of course). There may have been more, I don't know, I kind of lost track. For dessert, one could have Lamb of God cake (covered, alas, in in curly white icing and NOT coconut), chocolate Bible cake, any kind of Italian cookie you wanted, and piles and piles of pignolata (the little sticky dough bits that are collected together to represent pine cones, said by the Sicilians to be poor Baby Jesus's only plaything). The host's mama, a gorgeous Italian-American woman of indeterminate age, but surely older than me, went around and begged people to eat more and to take food home. (I needed no more encouragement to pack a container for Big Man, who couldn't come due to his gig in the Quarter.). As I stumbled out, replete with food and wine, I was urged to come again next year. FOR SURE.

Later that evening, I spoke to my sister L, who had apparently taken St. Joseph's Day by storm. I thought going to 4 altars was an achievement but it was nothing compared to L. She had been to 7 or so, and had both her lunch AND dinner at different St. Joseph's altars. (Even this can be bested -- at the home altar I visited, I ran into a woman who had done a complete novena of altars, visiting *9* AND going to a Mardi Gras Indian meeting of the chiefs Uptown besides! What a dedicated trooper!)

I ended St. Joseph's Day in a food stupor on the sofa, resolving to make an organized list and follow the examples of my sister and friend, and do MORE St. Joseph's altars next year.