PAUL CZAPKOWICZ
Times Correspondent
CALUMET CITY | Sunday morning, hours before nearly 700 hungry visitors came to partake in the annual St. Joseph Day Table, or Tavola, at St. Victor's Catholic Church, four parishioners worked in the church kitchen.
While female members of Italian Catholic Federation Branch 195 help prepare the tables and salad for the organization's largest fundraiser of the year, it is tradition that only male members do the cooking.
Parishioners Len Chiaro, Sergio Del Carlo, Nick Lika and Stanley Long served as chefs for the celebration in honor of the Feast Day of St. Joseph, foster-father of Jesus.
"It's a two-day event for us," said Chiaro, a 33-year member of the federation. "We meet here the day before. We pre-cook everything and then the following day we come back about a little after 8 in the morning and we start everything up again."
Long, a member of St. Victor's since 1962, figures he was asked about 10 years ago to help in the kitchen due to his experience as owner of Boz's Hot Dogs in Hammond.
Long joked that he works to keep the tradition of the Tavola alive because, "I'm married to an Italian."
Having been started by St. Victor's branch of the federation shortly after its founding in 1965, Long remembers when the Tavola was free for the needy, but said that "the ICF donates all their money to church groups."
Normally celebrated on March 19, St. Joseph's Feast Day has been moved to this coming Saturday so as not to interfere with the Catholic Church's Holy Week.
The story goes that the St. Joseph's Tavola had its start in Sicily during the Middle Ages at the time of a horrible famine. The people prayed to St. Joseph and were rewarded with rainfall, after which a feast was prepared to honor their patron saint.
Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry of the Archdiocese of Chicago presided over Sunday's 10:30 a.m. Mass that took place in advance of the noon feast.
Perry said St. Joseph is the patron saint of the universal church, of fathers and of laborers.
During his homily, Perry described St. Joseph as a man who was able to help change the course of history by putting his trust in God.
