THE FEAST OF ST. GERARD
St. Lucy’s Church
118 Seventh Avenue, Newark, NJ
Saturday, Oct. 19 & Sunday, Oct. 20
Around Toni Marie Bucci’s neck dangles a gold necklace with a St. Gerard medallion. She clutches it while recalling her recent trials getting pregnant.
“I wear it every day,” Bucci said. “We’ve done many treatments and it hasn’t been working yet – we haven’t had luck.”
Bucci was one of the first-time visitors who came to Newark’s St. Lucy’s Church in hopes of finding a little “luck.” She drove two hours to attend a special Mass last Thursday reserved for women trying to conceive. It happens once a year during the Feast of St. Gerard.
If you talk to church members, they’ll share stories of women coming from as far away as Italy to receive this blessing. In the old days, women learned of St. Gerard through family members. Bucci learned about this tradition from a nontraditional source – social media.
“It might sound silly but I saw this on Instagram and I had to come,” Bucci said.
The Feast of St. Gerard, first held in Newark in 1899, begins with nine days of prayer, called a novena, followed by a procession through the streets of Newark’s North Ward. The festivities conclude this weekend in a two-day celebration with food, music, and comedy shows – Nick Smeriglio is performing – in the plaza in front of St. Lucy’s Church. Festival organizers expect to draw an even larger crowd than usual as this is the 125th anniversary.
“We still carry the same statue that came from Italy more than a hundred years ago,” said John Cataldo, a member of St. Lucy’s and one of the festival organizers.
Cataldo and his wife, Carmela, are also trying to conceive and attended last Thursday’s service.
It is believed that one of St. Gerard’s first miracles was performed on a woman who survived a painful birth. The story goes that St. Gerard left behind a handkerchief during his travels. A woman who tried to return it to him was told somewhat eerily to keep it because she would need it someday. Years later, she clutched that same handkerchief to survive childbirth and credited this wonder worker for the miracle.
“This is part of our culture,” said Cataldo, whose family moved from Newark to Bloomfield when he was five years old. “My mother made a novena when she was pregnant so we came every year when I was young.”
Midway through the Mass, Father Louis Okot invited a small group of women, including Bucci and Cataldo’s wife, to place a candle on the altar. The priest said a prayer and sprinkled holy water on them.
There was a time when St. Gerard was only known in two tiny pockets of the world – the province of Avellino, Italy and Newark’s First Ward. The Italians who immigrated to the United States around the early 1900s largely hailed from Southern Italy, bringing with them their devotion to various saints, including San Gennaro who is celebrated in Manhattan. Those who ended up in Newark came from the province of Avellino and brought their devotion to Gerardo Maiella.
The first year of the festival, in 1899, devotees organized a procession through the First Ward. They carried only a framed portrait of Gerardo Maiella. The iconic statue that we associate with the festival hadn’t yet been shipped to over from Italy, which arrived the following year. It is still the same statue carried through the streets of the North Ward during the procession.
In the building next to St. Lucy’s Church is the Museum of the First Ward, which has more St. Gerard memorabilia than in Materdomini where he was buried, according to curator Bob Cascella. In 1999, the year of festival’s 100th anniversary, Cascella helped publish a book on St. Gerard that lists all the modern-day miracles that people attribute to him.
“We found out the Philippines, Ireland, Norway all have devotion to St. Gerard,” Cascella said.
It’s hard to believe that this man from a tiny, 18th-century village is known all over the world today.
Influencers like Laura Beverlin, who has more than 1.6 million followers on Instagram, teamed up with the Baby Quest Foundation, selling St. Gerard necklaces – the same one that Bucci wore to Mass – with a portion of the sales going to families struggling with infertility.
Despite St. Gerard’s growing popularity, the festival is still an intimate gathering for those who hail from Newark’s First Ward. “This is where we meet the cousins, aunts, and uncles,” Cataldo said. “This is our family reunion.”
