This has to be the single most frequent question I receive, and unfortunately I have no good answer for it. For some the custom is to wear red, others have told me they wear orange and the custom where I grew up was to wear purple. The closest I could find was that purple and red have something to do with the color of vestments worn during lent. I don't know if this is any corallary, but it's the only thing I could come up with. As for the purple, the school colors for St. Joseph's School were purple and white, so that could be why we wore purple. Someday I hope to find a more definitive answer.
In 2007 I received the following information in an email from a very nice woman who gave me permission to share it. Thank you! We do NOT wear "red" on St. Joseph's Day.... we DO wear "purple", i.e. the color reserved to royalty which represents the royal line of David passed to Jesus as the seed of Jesse. Cardinals of our Roman Catholic Church also wear the purple; and it is traditional in portraits to show Jesus himself wearing robes of this once-expensive dye. The color is now more often called scarlet and is considered a shade of red--English is a poor language for expressing Latin ideas. Through baptism, all Christians bear the call to priest, prophet, and king that is the legacy of the Christ. On the feast of St. Joseph, Italians wear royal purple--what we now call red--as a sign of the workings of Christ our King.
Some people believe that burying a statue of St. Joseph in your yard will help you sell your home. There are even companies that sell kits for this purpose. I really dislike this custom as I believe it is very disrespectful. For a respectful alternative please go to A Prayer for the Sale of Real Estate located at prayerbook.com.
Any traditional Italian dish that is meatless is appropriate for a St. Joseph's day feast. Some ideas are bacala (codfish in a tomato sauce), pasta with a crumb topping, bread baked into shapes like crosses, and of course desserts like zeppole. Links to recipes for some of the above dishes can be found on my feast page.
St. Joseph's Pants are a special deep fried pastry stuffed with a mixture containing sweetened chickpea paste, as well as other ingredients. Other names for this dessert are cavazune, cavazoon or Calzones de San Guiseppe (Calzones is pants in Italian). Recipes for this pastry can be found on my feast page.
St. Joseph's day is always on March 19, regardless of what day of the week it is.
Yes. St. Joseph's Day is a solemnity, and as such canonical law allows an exception to fasting/abstinence. For a more in depth explanation, visit Scott's Catholicism Blog
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