St Joseph’s Table
27 April 2008 - 23 ניסן 5768 by Huw
Here in Buffalo there are several traditions practised which are local to specific European (etc) ethnic groups. These hold their roots in the pagan ancestors of the Catholic home-nations of these groups. For example, there is the Polish festival that “celebrates the end of Lent” which is filled with spring-time fertility rites. It has nothing to do with Lent other than timing.
Another such tradition is the Sicilian practice of St Joseph’s Table:
The St. Joseph’s Table is a ritual meal done by Sicilians and Sicilian-Americans in fulfillment of a promise made to St. Joseph for his assistance in a time of family or personal crises. The Table is held on or as close to his feast day of March 19th as possible. It is a very compelling and complex celebration with meaning for the people as a whole and even more specific meaning for the particular group or family celebrating the day.
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With St. Joseph there is a hospitality and nurturing in the making and fulfilling promises. In Sicily, in a society that is kin-oriented and closed to outsiders, the Table has provided a way for the women to open their homes to strangers in an accepted manner as well as fulfill the promise made to St. Joseph.
I was intrigued by the celebration: when I first moved to Buffalo there were signs everywhere advertising “Tables”. I found out from one of my coworkers what the deal was - free food! But I’d never heard of it - even from devout RCs who celebrated St Joseph’s day (19 March). It seems a very regional festival (that is, regional to Sicily).
As I was reading the article about the festival, I was struck by several things: first off there is the treating of the Saint as if he might be a vengeful deity. We find this also in the Santaria traditions, where the very-human African deities wear the masks of Catholic saints. So I took this treating of St Joseph to be a Catholic veneer over something pagan.
Other clues are found in the content of the custom: special breads and grains, beans, always all-vegetarian meals, begging, hospitality. (I noted especially, the All Vegie meals. The excuse is “lent” but important festival usually are an excuse to forego fasting. Insisting on keeping the menu implies a different reason besides Lent.
I didn’t have to look much further than a list of holidays in Pagan Rome: Most of March is dedicated to Mars, the God of War. But one feast, the Liberalia, dedicated to the God, Liber Pater Venerable:
Liber is an ancient Italic deity of germination and agriculture. Later he was assimilated with Bacchus, Greek Dionysus. Their names were used interchangably. Liber Pater [he was always called 'Liber Pater' Venerable] was an important deity. In Lavinium an entire month was given to his celebration which featured a procession of a phallus that was crowned by the most worthy of the matronae.
Additionaly his cult was to assure the the success of the crops and to avert evil; the phallus was a fascinatio of the fields much like Priapus was in the courtyards of homes to avert danger. For his protection of the wheat and fruits Liber always remained a deity of the plebeians.
I’m sensing a connexion between St Joseph’s Lily (which comes from an odd legend) and Liber’s staff…
Fascinating! I’ve known about St. Joseph’s Tables for years, but I’ve never actually known them to really exist. (I.e. it was a “domestic church suggestion” on some website somewhere).
The connection is an interesting one. However, I’m not sure your reason for the vegetarianism is necessarily the right one. I think it *could* legitimately be a Lenten reason. Because, excuse or not, St. Joseph’s Day is still not a major feast.
It’s like the Irish-Americans all getting annoyed that they can’t have Corned Beef on St. Patrick’s Day when it falls on a Lenten Friday. The Vatican still doesn’t care. :)
You may well be right about that, although that Remote Control feature is only a recent update to the software and such choices were more local originally.