Bishop celebrates Mass to mark 120th anniversary of Feast of St. Cesario in Netcong parish

NETCONG  Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney celebrated a Mass in honor of St. Cesario, an Italian martyr, on July 23 in St. Michael Church marking the 120th anniversary of the annual Feast of St. Cesario celebrations. Father Michael Lee, pastor, concelebrated the Mass with the Bishop.

Following the Mass, the celebration continued with a procession through the streets of Netcong, a town that welcomed many Italian immigrants during the early 1900s. Members of the St. Cesario Society, which organized the event, carried an image of St. Cesario, accompanied by a color guard with the American flag and an Italian band. Afterward, families gathered in a local park for an evening of food, games for the children, and fireworks.

The Feast of St. Cesario is scheduled every year on the second to last Saturday of July. It continues to draw generation after generation as grandchildren, great grandchildren and even great-great grandchildren filled the pews of St. Michael’s — some who traveled long distances to come back to the Netcong parish — to mark the feast of the Italian saint.

In 1902, eight Italian immigrants left their hometown of Cesa, a province north of Naples, Italy, to come to America. The men — Francesco, Raffaele and Cesario Puco, Antonio Ferriero, Domenco and Guiseppe Togno, Lugi, and Giustino Esposito — settled in the bucolic area in and around Netcong in northwest Morris County, but they never forgot their roots back home by establishing the St. Cesario Society in honor of their hometown’s patron saint. Now, 120 years later, the names of these men appear on the banner that is carried in the procession for St. Cesario.

St. Cesario lived around 300 AD during a time, when pagans were persecuting Christians. Cesario was a 19-year-old deacon studying for the priesthood. During a visit to Italy, he witnessed a pagan celebration of Apollo and he objected to the human sacrifice it involved. He took the place of a man with eight children, who was to be killed for being a Christian. He was imprisoned for two years, and then martyred. He was tied into a sack and thrown into the sea to drown at Pisco Montano, Terracina, Italy. Later his body was found incorrupt. After his death many miracles were attributed to him and he was canonized.