By Paula Day

It was a celebration that would please any father.

Songs were sung in his honor, children acted out events from his life, words were spoken in love and appreciation of his virtues and gifts were given in his name.

St. Joseph’s parish in Marietta honored the head of the Holy Family and their parish patron with such a celebration.

Days before the March 19 feast, women of the parish baked breads and cookies and prepared other food. Men built the three-tiered St. Joseph’s Altar with materials donated by community businesses. Children prepared skits based on the saint’s life as found in the Gospel narratives to act out during Mass. On the day itself the parish family gathered and, as in any family, one could hear adults explaining to children the meaning behind the practices and symbols.

Father Lawrence Schmuhl, SM, offered the Mass celebrating the feast. He urged his young listeners to be as diligent in doing their father’s business (in this case, their homework), as the saint had been in his work as a carpenter.

During the Mass fourth graders, depicting the Holy Family and other Biblical characters, enacted Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem, flight into Egypt and search for the boy Jesus in the Temple.

After the liturgy the schoolchildren processed to Marist Hall to view the centerpiece of the day’s celebration, the St. Joseph’s Altar.

A U-shaped structure with a large statue of the patron of the universal church in the center dominated the hall. It was piled with variously shaped breads and cakes, cookies, uncooked fish, colored eggs, flasks of wine, and other symbols of religious faith. A smaller table, set for three with napkins, silver, china, crystal, flowers and candles awaited the Holy Family.

Father Schmuhl blessed the table and food on the altar and then visitors moved in closer to view the spread. Two caged white doves attracted a lot of attention. They were the presents given by Joseph and Mary to the priests in the temple, one teacher explained. A doll in a basket was Moses in the bulrushes, explained another.

The custom of building an altar and decorating it with baked delicacies began in Sicily in gratitude for the intercession and protection of the saint during a famine. Small to begin with, the flamboyant nature and creative spirit of the Italians soon developed it into the colorful tradition it has become. In the United States it has been adopted by parishes regardless of ethnicity.

In 1986 sisters Karen Manuel and Sherry Duplantis came from an area in Louisiana that celebrated the custom. Mrs. Duplantis, a St. Joseph parishioner, spearheaded this year’s celebration. Her sister, who is from neighboring Transfiguration parish, helped her and the St. Joseph’s parish community enthusiastically joined in.

After the evening service March 19, which included the Way of the Cross and Mass, the community processed to Marist Hall. Children representing the Holy Family were seated at the special table and served food from the altar. The remaining food was donated to Ministries United for Service and Training (MUST), a Cobb County shelter for homeless families. Donations offered by viewers of the altar will go to the Mark Hall family. Hall, a former organist at St. Joseph, has terminal cancer.

The Joseph Piccione family of Lafayette, La., friends of Karen and Glenn Manuel, and the Walter Duplantis family of Metairie, La., cousins of Sherry and Mike Duplantis, provided assistance to the Marietta families in preparing the parish celebration.