Another beloved saint spurs mid-March traditions: it’s time for St. Joseph’s Tables

Green and gold T-shirts bearing, “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” fill store windows around town, waiting to be snatched up by revelers who prepare for St. Patrick’s Day, a festival now celebrated around the world.

But in a country not far from Ireland, there’s a lesser-known saint with his own set of followers. Every March 19, St. Joseph’s statue is paraded through the streets of Italy to the sounds of drums and trumpets while locals watch from their balconies above.

They spend weeks leading up to St. Joseph’s Day building altars in his honor.

Nearly 5,000 miles away, Italian-Americans in Kansas City have kept the St. Joseph’s day tradition of their ancestors alive.

St. Joseph altars, often referred to as tables in Catholic churches in the U.S., date back to medieval times in Sicily. The legend, told by Italian-Americans, is that a drought in the 1600s created a great famine. Sicilians prayed to St. Joseph for rain and promised that if he answered their prayers, they would dedicate a feast day in his name every year to feed the hungry.

St. Joseph, the patron saint of workers, answered their prayers. The rain came and crops began to rise again.

The tradition, carried on for generations, is often the result of a promise made to St. Joseph to answer a prayer in exchange for a devotion.

Altars in the U.S. were initially held in people’s homes, but were later moved to local parishes to accommodate more people. Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Columbus Park, founded in 1891 to serve Italian migrants in the area, was the first Kansas City area parish to hold a St. Joseph’s Day table in the early 1950s, says Evelyn VanDierendonk, office manager at Holy Rosary.

The three-tiered tables — a symbol of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — are generally found in U.S. cities in which large numbers of Italians settled between the late 1890s and early 1900s.

Every parish adds its own touch, but there are a few staples that make a true St. Joseph table: a St. Joseph statue, fruits and vegetables, and fava beans — the only crop that was able to grow during the famine. Bread is also a must, a symbol of the wheat that grew once the famine ended. The bread is often braided into intricate sculptures like crosses and other symbolic shapes.

Holy Rosary still hosts the city’s biggest table, attracting up to 2,500 people in a two-day period from states as far away as Texas and Minnesota. It has also served as a model for other local parishes’ St. Joseph’s Day festivities.

Christine Marion, who oversees preparations at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Shawnee, says a parishioner from the Northeast area of Kansas City suggested they start their own table. About six women, including Marion, visited Holy Rosary’s feast day celebrations.

“They were very helpful and very nice to us and gave us a lot of helping hands,” Marion says.

They learned to bake traditional Italian-American cookies, like the almond-shaped, iced cookie known as biscotti, as well as how to build and decorate the table.

This year marked the parish’s 25th year celebrating the saint.

“The original purpose of the St. Joseph’s table was to give thanks and to feed the hungry,” Marion says. “It’s become a labor of love for most of us.”

Altars are also laden with candles, flowers and sweets. Because the feast day falls during the Catholic Lenten season, no meat is served. Instead, parishioners serve visitors pasta Milanese sprinkled with breadcrumbs to symbolize St. Joseph’s sawdust. Other staples include egg dishes with vegetables, stuffed artichokes and seafood.

Homemade cookies and cakes and have also become mainstream in the U.S., including the famous Sicilian cannoli — a tubular crust filled with ricotta cheese and, sfinci, a fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Per tradition, parishes do not charge visitors for meals. Instead, they ask for free will donations, funds that are later donated to local charities and food pantries. The cookies are sold for charity money as well, and festivities are open to the public.

Rosalie George, 90, who has overseen the baking for the last 20 years at Holy Rosary, says preparations can take months. Parishioner volunteers begin making cannoli shells in January, for example.

“This is a big day for us,” George says. “Everybody has a reason,” she says, of why people volunteer.

George says she calls on St. Joseph for the health of her family. “I pray that he gives them guidance and wisdom to walk the straight path,” she says of her grandchildren.

Many share similar stories.

Dianna Scola, who in 2002 brought the feast day tradition to St. Patrick Parish in Kansas City, North, credits St. Joseph with helping keep her daughter, Paula, from completely losing her hearing.

“Since I have done it my daughter’s hearing has only gone down slightly,” Scola says of her work with the St. Joseph tables, which she started in 1997. “When I started they said that she would probably be deaf by the time she was 18. She is 22 now and she is nowhere near being deaf.”

Scola still heads the day’s festivities, which she says can attract more than 500 people.

Anna Jo Pfannenstiel, who oversees preparations at St. James Catholic Church in Liberty, says St. Joseph helped her son, John, overcome a brain tumor in 2009. John was born on St. Joseph’s Day in 1975. Pfannenstiel has held a devotion to St. Joseph ever since his birth.

Angie DiFidi, 73, who for the past 40 years has led St. Joseph preparations at St. Thomas More Parish at Santa Fe Trail and Holmes Road, says her motivation is her family’s well-being. “It’s a promise and a pledge that I have made to myself. And that is what makes me go on with it.”

St. Thomas More, a parish with more than 1,800 families, usually serves between 800 and 1,000 pasta meals during its one-day event, says DiFidi.

And what was once a mostly Italian-American tradition has evolved into a multicultural celebration.

Nancy Malicoat, 45, who has overseen preparations for St. Michael the Archangel’s table in Leawood since 2007, says her Sicilian-American mother-in-law introduced her to the tradition.

“I never even knew it existed,” Malicoat says. Once she saw the exquisite altars at a parish in Blue Springs, she knew she wanted to help. When she and her husband moved to Leawood 10 years ago and joined St. Michael, she volunteered to help with the parish’s table.

St. Michael’s doesn’t have an Italian-American background, Malicoat says, but parishioners are catching on to the tradition.

About 40 volunteers help bake cookies and set up the altar in the church. It’s not a traditional St. Joseph’s table where dinner is served, says Malicoat, but baked goods can still be purchased. The table is built at the front of the church each year, where Malicoat places signs explaining the tradition.

“People walk in, read this and people say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that...that is very interesting,’ ” Malicoat says.

Geri Townsend, 81, social outreach coordinator at St. Andrew the Apostle in Gladstone, says while there is still an Italian-American presence, the parish has attracted Irish-Americans and German-Americans. This year’s St. Joseph’s table at the church was March 11 and 12.

Townsend said that last year, St. Andrew’s table raised around $15,000, all of which was used for people in need.

“People call and say, ‘Well I need help paying my utility bills, I need lodging, I need food, I need medicine,’ ” Townsend says. “Whatever it is, if I can help them, I help them with that money.”

Whether it’s a promise, a passion, or a sacred family tradition, the true mission behind St. Joseph’s Day remains unchanged.

“It’s just giving to those who need a hand,” Pfannenstiel says. “This is not just an Italian thing. St. Joseph looks down and helps everyone.”

This story was originally published March 14, 2017 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Another beloved saint spurs mid-March traditions: it’s time for St. Joseph’s Tables."