Feast day: September 19

St. Januarius

Bishop, Martyr · d. c. 305

Patron of Naples, blood banks

A bishop of Benevento beheaded in the last great persecution, whose dried blood, kept in a vial at Naples, is famous for liquefying on his feast day before crowds of the faithful.

Januarius — in Italian San Gennaro — was, by tradition, the bishop of Benevento in southern Italy who was martyred during the persecution of Diocletian, about the year 305. Of the historical details of his life almost nothing certain survives; what has made him one of the most famous of all martyrs is not his story but a phenomenon connected with his relics.

According to his acts, he was arrested while visiting imprisoned fellow Christians, condemned, and beheaded near Naples, the city that adopted him as its great patron. His body was brought to Naples, and there, preserved in the cathedral, are kept his head and two sealed glass vials said to contain his dried blood.

Many times each year, on his feast and certain other days, the vials are exposed for veneration — and the dark, solid mass within is commonly seen to liquefy, turning to fresh-looking liquid blood, sometimes bubbling, in the sight of the crowds. This 'miracle of San Gennaro,' recorded for centuries, the Church has never officially defined, but the people of Naples watch it intently, taking its failure to occur as an omen of disaster.

Whatever the explanation, the devotion is immense: Januarius is the beloved protector of Naples, invoked especially against the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, and his name is honoured wherever the strange annual wonder of his blood is known.

Several times a year the congealed blood of San Gennaro is held up in Naples cathedral and seen to turn liquid again — a wonder watched by the whole city.

Image: Louis Finson (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/08295a.htm