Former Altar Boy, Son Repair Damage

Mario Marcella’s mother would have been proud.

A devout Catholic, she died several months before her son and grandson began building an altar for St. Aloyius Roman Catholic Church.

“I was her little altar boy,” said Marcella, owner of Mario and Sons Marble and Granite shop. “She would have liked it a lot - knowing I made something for the church.”

The Marcellas make most of their money building upscale bathrooms.

“That’s good work, but this,” Mario Marcella said, looking around the opulent sanctuary, “this is true art.”

The father and son were excited and intimidated at the prospect of building the altar. Church members asked the stone cutters to include four gates salvaged from the old altar rail, which was destroyed 25 years ago by a madman with a sledgehammer.

Apprehension set in after Mario Marcella loaded the 300-pound gates on his truck to take them to his East Trent shop.

“These things hadn’t seen daylight for 80 years, and here I’m driving around with them in my truck,” he said.

The father-son team devoted a month to building the altar.

Matching the Carrara marble installed in the church shortly after the turn of the century was impossible, said Joey Marcella. The quarry near Carrara, Italy, closed long ago.

The stone cutters eventually decided on Calacutta Oro marble, also from Italy.

The new altar stands about 3-1/2 feet high and weighs 3,500 pounds.

The intricately designed gates frame the base of the altar. The gate facing the congregation depicts lilies.

Mario Marcella used marble shaved from the side of the gate to patch a petal broken during the melee 25 years ago.

He added a small lily bud to another damaged area and tucked an even smaller bud behind it.

“The first bud is for my mother,” he said. “And the smaller one is for my wife, who put up with all the time I spent on this.”

, DataTimes