Fiesta celebrates family, faith

By Linda M. Linonis

The festival will begin with an outdoor Mass.

CAMPBELL — Faith, family, fiesta.

Those words personify the essence of the festival this week planned by Santa Rosa de Lima Church. The concepts behind the words play an integral role in the event.

“In Latino culture, everything falls under the umbrella of faith, family and fiesta,” said Felipe Gonzalez, director of music at Santa Rosa, also known as St. Rose of Lima.

“There’s a tradition of outdoor Masses and worship in the Puerto Rican culture,” said the Rev. Gerald DeLucia, who noted Santa Rosa is the parish home for many who hail from a multitude of Latino countries. “In Puerto Rico, each town has a patron saint and the feast day, typically the date of the saint’s death, is marked with a fiesta.”

St. Rose of Lima Feast Day is Aug. 23. “For scheduling reasons, we have the festival earlier in August,” Father DeLucia said. The festival begins Friday and continues through Sunday.

Outdoor worship comes naturally in many Latino countries, where the climate is more conducive to that activity, and a procession with a statue of the saint accompanies it. “This is a reminder to us of that tradition,” said John A. Rentas, a deacon at Santa Rosa, who added that Ohio weather often doesn’t cooperate.

“Celebrating the feast day of a saint and the death reminds us of the resurrection of Jesus and how the saint has eternal life,” Father DeLucia said.

“Family is the center of our people,” Rentas said. “There’s the nuclear family, but it expands to include extended family and the family of the Catholic community.”

“‘Compadre is a term that’s often used ... meaning ‘with father’ and describes someone as family that extends beyond bloodline,” Father DeLucia said. “The Hispanic concept of family is more expansive than restrictive.”

Santa Rosa de Lima Church festival provides another way for families to connect. Family members from out of state and out of the country use the occasion to visit family here. “It’s a natural gathering place and time for families,” Gonzalez said.

The crowning of the festival queen also prompts families to rally together by supporting a family member, he said.

“The greatest gift the Hispanic culture can give to America is sharing the value it places on family,” Father DeLucia said.

The fiesta part is synonymous with food and music. “Music reflects tradition,” he said.

Rentas said dances such as the bolero, a slow dance of Cuban origin, and the salsa, a dance with African influence popular in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, will be seen on the dance floor. “Music is essential,” Rentas said, and added that “worship without music is unheard of.” Even the daily Mass at St. Rose often has music because many members play the guitar.

Food is the domain of Carmen Molina, food chairwoman, who oversees two weeks of advance preparation of many Hispanic specialties. Food selections will include pasteles, a boiled meat pie, whose dough is made from ingredients that include plantains and yucca; pastelillos, fried meat pies in a half-moon shape filled with seasoned ground beef; alcapurrias, the dough is similar to pasteles and it’s filled with ground beef and fried; rellenos de papa, mashed potatoes stuffed with ground beef then fried; arroz con gandules, rice with peas in a red sauce; flan, a custard dessert; budin, bread pudding; tostones, fried plantains; pig on a spit; and pernil, fresh ham.

“I like to show and teach people how to make this,” said Molina, who came to the mainland from Puerto Rico in the early 1970s. “A lot of people come to the festival because they love the food,” she said.