At St. Anthony & St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday morning, the air was infused with the sweet fragrance of sautéed peppers. Congregants were hard at work preparing food for this weekend’s celebration for the Feast of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. Parishioner Lina Manoiero, who has been a member of the church for 30 years, said that the feast involves a whole month of preparation.

“We do everything fresh – we bake fresh bread, we fry up the peppers," she said. "Everything we do fresh. It’s a lot of work and a lot of preparation, and we try to do the best we can for the people.” Nicknamed the healing saints, Sts. Cosmas and Damian were brothers and physicians who traversed the Roman Empire centuries ago preaching Christianity and administering remedies to the sick.