While many parishes in the archdiocese were celebrating St. Patrick on March 17, Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Melrose Park turned its attention to a figure important to Italians and Italian Americans: St. Joseph, whose feast day is March 19.

People wore red for St. Joseph and packed the church for the Sunday Mass in Italian. Following Mass, they processed around the church and former school with a donkey and teens portraying Joseph and Mary.

The Holy Family’s flight to Egypt is an important part of the traditional feast day celebration, said Elio Bartolotta, a member of the parish’s Fidelity de Padre Pio association and the lead organizer for the festivities.

The event culminated with lunch and the annual St. Joseph’s Table, a tradition that started in Sicily in the 16th century. At the time, wealthy families would serve meals to the poor to mark the feast day.

At Our Lady of Mount Carmel, parishioners donate food for the St. Joseph’s Table, and at the end of lunch, people purchase the items. Proceeds support Fidelity de Padre Pio’s monthly food giveaway and scholarships.

A few days before the celebration, a dozen parishioners met in a nearby restaurant to bake Italian sesame bread in elaborate styles for the table. Crosses, wreaths and canes symbolizing Joseph’s staff dominated the designs. Other parishioners brought items such as homemade pastry, fruit, candy, butter in the shape of lambs for Easter and even a large cooked fish on a platter for the table.

Melrose Park once had a large Italian immigrant population, and many people of Italian heritage still attend Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel or return for major feasts, including  St. Joseph’s Day and the Our Lady of Mount Carmel novena and feast day celebration in July.

“We try to help this parish bring people to the church, especially Italians,” Bartolotta said of Fidelity de Padre Pio’s mission. “When you participate in Mass in your own language, it makes a difference.”

Maria Gambino’s mother grew up in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood and shares stories about going from house to house on St. Joseph’s Day.

While the celebration is different today, it is all about family and heritage.

“Here as an Italian American parish, we’re trying really hard to keep the Italian heritage so this day is very important to all of us,” Gambino said. “It is like heaven. It’s such a community to connect. There’s no other place where you can do this as an Italian American, though we welcome everybody.”

“It means to the parish life, family, the value of life to celebrate the devotion to the man who decided to protect Jesus for our salvation — St. Joseph,” said Scalabrinian Leandro Fossá, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. “St. Joseph is the universal patron of the church. He is the image of a good father, a good man. For us Catholics, St. Joseph is the image of what a man should be in a home, in a job, in his ministry and in his life, so that’s why St. Joseph is one of the most important feasts for our parish.”