The traditions of St. Joseph’s Day
Are you looking forward to eating some Zeppole di San Giuseppe this week? It’s the Southern Italian pastry made of fried dough and custard that is a fixture of St. Joseph’s Day, which we celebrate every March 19th. The Zeppole tradition stems from a legend that claims St. Joseph sold sweets to earn a living after he fled to Egypt with Jesus and Mary. Other traditions also abound surrounding the celebration of this feast day, especially in Italy, where it serves as their nation’s Father’s Day.
One particular Sicilian legend recounts a drought in the Middle Ages that came to an end after prayers for the intercession of Saint Joseph brought rain. Those rains gave life to the fava bean, an important crop that helped relieve the famine sweeping Sicily. Gatherings were held to honor Saint Joseph’s intercession and give thanks to God, establishing traditions now celebrated yearly. And the fava bean, featured in those first celebrations, remains a component of devotional altars assembled for the feast in our day.
Also tracing to this Sicilian legend is the practice of designating a table of food for donation to the poor on Saint Joseph’s Day, grounded in the people’s experience of being without food, a memory that leads to a commitment to generosity towards those struggling with hunger and poverty.
This provides such a beautiful connection to Saint Joseph because the Holy Family certainly experienced their share of hardship and doing without in this world. These traditions surrounding the Feast of Saint Joseph draw us deeper into the Gospel and the story of Joseph caring for Mary and Jesus, even to the point of having the humility to seek and accept help in times of need.
These traditions also draw us into the teachings of Christ, who said of those who feed the hungry, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
In other regions of Italy, bonfires are lit on the eve of Saint Joseph’s Day, starting the celebration early in a way that evokes a sense of wonder befitting the figure of Saint Joseph. The man chosen by God to care for Mary and Jesus must have commanded tremendous admiration from them, and the bonfires honor him appropriately.
Those bonfires also inspire the awe we should have for Saint Joseph as a model of fatherhood. That awe is based somewhat on the mysterious nature of Joseph, because we don’t hear a lot about him in scripture. We get glimpses of his heroism in his obedience to God, sacrificial nature, and love for Mary and Jesus.
And this is so much how children experience awe in relation to any good father. They see a man who relates to them in their world, but our fathers are always more complex than the countless functions they provide in service to family. Getting to know them fully is a journey of discovery over a lifetime.
Saint Joseph provides a perfect lens through which to understand fatherhood because he checks all the boxes for what a loving and loyal husband and father should be in the glimpses we get of him. But he also opens our minds to fatherhood as mystery. In this way, our celebration of Saint Joseph on his feast day should awaken us to the mystery of our own fathers, and other fathers we know, so that we can support them in their great journey to care for their families.
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