Region's Catholics prepare St. Joseph's altar

St. Mary Parish's Roman Catholics joined fellow members of their faith in observing St. Joseph's Day with the traditional altar.

St. Joseph's Day fell on Sunday. On Monday, Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel celebrated a Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Patterson, where Joseph is the church's patron saint. From there, the bishop accompanied young people, dressed as figures from the biblical Christmas story, who knocked on doors at the church hall until they were allowed in.

In the hall was an elaborate altar weighted down with food and with a statue of St. Joseph at its head.

In a tradition that goes back to Sicily in the middle ages, farmers prayed to St. Joseph to end a drought, and after a lifesaving rain fell, they prepared a feast in his honor and shared the food with the poor.