You can almost feel the hustle and bustle in the crowded villages: peddlers hawk their wares, people shop at open-air markets, children play, mothers scold, chickens squawk, donkeys bray, farmers tend their livestock, construction workers toil, men argue in a town square. In the distance, nomads on camels cross the parched desert landscape. Settlements dot the horizon, their inhabitants busy carrying water and cooking meals. In an obscure corner is an encampment where Roman soldiers strike a foreboding pose.
At the center of it all — as yet unnoticed by all but the heavenly beings aloft — is a tiny stable where the baby Jesus lay.
“God became like us in a very humble way, a very small part in a very big picture, in a humble setting, while everybody was busy doing something else,’ explains Father Jerry Cestare, chaplain at Bishop McGann-Mercy High School in Riverhead. “This depicts teeming humanity, oblivious to the greatest miracle, the greatest moment in history.”
Six thousand miniature figures populate this model of ancient-world civilization, a snapshot in time. Cestare is the architect of the sprawling presepio display now on exhibit at the high school. Built under his supervision by students over a one-week period earlier this month, it occupies about 1,000 square feet of the rear stage in the school’s auditorium.
A visitor entering through a doorway festooned with poinsettia flowers is transported to another time and place. The display is enclosed by a custom-made semicircular wall, painted a deep midnight blue. Overhead are puffy clouds made of cotton-like fiber, suspended from invisible chicken wire; lights twinkle within the tufts of white and tiny angels, harps in hand, are suspended from the clouds. Water trickling from small fountains incorporated into the miniature landscape provides a serene accompaniment to “Carols of the Nativity,” sung by the Cambridge Singers, playing softly in the background.
The creation is a family tradition for Cestare, a passion passed on to him as a child by his grandfather, Henry Gioia, who built a large village in his living room each year before Christmas. The priest’s grandfather hand-made many of the stables and buildings currently on display at McGann-Mercy. Cestare made many others himself.
After his grandfather passed away while Cestare was a seminary student, the future priest pledged he would carry on the tradition and set up the scene himself for all to enjoy. He’s been doing that for more than 25 years. The school chaplain shares his personal story in a first-person account titled “My Grandfather’s Christmas Gift,” which visitors can pick up on a table outside the presepio.
“Every religion class spent time building this, so every student in the school had their hands on it,” Cestare said, smiling.
“I taught the kids all my secrets and tricks for building this,” Cestare said, “such as how to make sure the figurines stand upright” and using ground coffee and cocoa powder for the landscape— “real dirt tends to smell,” the priest notes. Every year he sprinkles some soil from the Holy Land, he said. Under the baby Jesus’ crib he places a stone from the cave of the nativity in Bethlehem.
The display, a traditional Neapolitan crèche, changes from year to year, Cestare said, noting he has another 500 figurines that aren’t part of the display this year.
A core group of eight pupils, who Cestare said really took the project on and made it their own, came together Wednesday morning to talk about the experience of building the presepio. They worked long hours on the project, he said.
Each felt a special kinship to a different aspect of the exhibit.
“I like the contrast between the desert and the villages,” senior Patrick O’Brien, of Riverhead, said.
“Yes, the hustle and bustle of the towns, with their marketplaces,” senior Natalie Messiah agreed, “and then there’s the farms, the desert and the Roman encampment.”
“Every time I come in here to look at it, I see so many things, so many details I hadn’t noticed before,” McGann-Mercy development director Robin Bay said. “There’s just so much to it,” she marveled.
Senior Andrew Glastow of Riverhead said the best part of helping create the display was seeing how people enjoy experiencing it.
That’s what’s motivated Cestare for more than 25 years, during which thousands of people have visited his presepio in the various parishes and institutions to which he’s been assigned by the diocese.
“I love it when I see a mom or dad holding their child and telling the story of how God so humbly entered the world,” Cestare says in his story of the crèche. “The nativity was born as a teaching tool by St. Francis of Assisi [who created the very first crèche in Greccio, Italy in 1223] and it continues to tell the world the wonderful true story of Christmas today,” Cestare writes. Click here to read “My Grandfather’s Christmas Gift” by the Rev. Gerald Cestare.
“My prayer is that in the midst of a crazy, commercial and stress-filled world, people will stop for a moment to remember what truly is the greatest story ever told,” the priest writes.
The McGann-Mercy Presepio will be open for public viewing through Jan. 12, as follows:
Monday to Friday: 12 noon to 8 p.m.
Saturday: 3 to 8 p.m.
Sunday: 1 to 6 p.m.
It will be closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well as New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
McGann-Mercy High School is located at 1225 Ostrander Avenue, Riverhead.
Photo caption, from left: McGann-Mercy High School students credited with building the Presepio with Fr. Jerry Cestare this year: Natalie Messiah, Paul Annunziata, Steven Cheeseman, Andrew Glastow, Matthew Glastow, Patrick O’Brien, Fr. Jerry Cestare, Jackie Spinella, Stephanie Spinella.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
Click thumbnails to enlarge images
{gallery}2013/slideshows/2013_1214_presepio{/gallery}
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.