The feast of the bishop-martyr St Januarius (d c305), known in Italian as San Gennaro, is celebrated this week. He is the patron saint of Naples, where the faithful venerate vials of his dried blood which regularly liquefies on three days a year: September 19 (the saint’s feast), December 16 (anniversary of the 1631 eruption of the volcano Vesuvius, which looms over the Bay of Naples) and the First Sunday of May (the day of the translation or moving of the saint’s relics to Naples).
The liquefaction of San Gennaro’s blood is taken seriously by the people of the area. When it fails to change state, bad things tend to happen, such as famine, disease and earthquakes – for example, the terrible quake of 1980 which killed almost 3,000 people and injured thousands more. Hence, on these special liquefying days, throngs jam the cathedral. The Cardinal Archbishop displays the reliquary with the larger of the two ampoules and slowly oscillates it. When it changes, he announces “The miracle has happened”, thus launching the corybantic assemblage into that great hymn of praise, the Te Deum.
