Saint Joseph
March 19, 2012
THIS DETAIL from Federico Fiori Barocci’s Flight to Egypt (1570) depicts Joseph, whose feast day is today, in an unusually carefree pose as he playfully hands an olive branch to Christ.
Joseph, most faithful and most courageous, mirror of patience and lover of poverty, watch over us.
—– Comments —-
Fred Owens writes:
Yes, a wonderful day. How could I ever forget March 19th? I went to St. Joseph’s School in Wilmette, Illinois and we got the day off every March 19th — when all the public school kids did NOT — Hurray for St. Joe’s!
Vincent C. writes:
The construction of a St. Joseph’s Altar in private homes, as seen in the photo below, was, essentially, brought to this country by Sicilian, not Italian, immigrants, a distinction with a difference. But even amongst Sicilians, such a celebration was not practiced in most of the areas where they settled. For example, among those in my father’s family born in Sicily and living in New York City, I do not ever recall such an altar being set up.
From what I have read and witnessed, it appears that the celebration of St. Joseph’s Day, and the setting up of an altar in private homes was practiced far more amongst the Sicilian immigrants in New Orleans than any other part of the country. Why this is so, I cannot explain: it just is. But that there were relatively large numbers of Sicilians in New Orleans deserves a little footnote.
The US Ambassador to Colombia, my first overseas posting as a Foreign Service Officer, was Leonard Saccio. In a conversation shortly after I arrived (1971), given the similarity of the same vowel ending our surnames, I asked his family’s origins, and his answer was, “Sicily.” He then detailed his father’s journey to from Sicily to the US via the Port of New Orleans, which was a bit of a surprise: I believed that the Sicilians, like most other immigrants, entered the country via Ellis Island in New York harbor.
As Ambassador Saccio explained, his father had entered via New Orleans because that year an outbreak of malaria and yellow fever had erupted amongst those laborers draining the swamp land that surrounds “the Crescent City.” Labor was in short supply and the appeal went out to bring in Sicilian (emphasis mine) laborers. Why Sicilians and not any other type of immigrant? It was the medical belief at the time that the Sicilian was the closest genetically to blacks, and that Sicilians, therefore, were less susceptible and could withstand the illnesses that plagued the area. Saccio pere survived his digging ordeal and slowly worked his way to Connecticut, where the ambassador was born, and eventually earned his law degree at Columbia University.
Another son of a Sicilian immigrant also earned a law degree, but his career was far more spectacular in that he now will be one of nine “lawyers” who will hear oral arguments and decide the constitutionality of Obamacare beginning on March 26. I will have the privilege of watching – and hearing – history being made.
