The reading
How it began
Januarius, bishop of Benevento, is martyred under Diocletian. Naples keeps his relics. At least since 1389, a small ampule of what is believed to be his blood is brought near his head-reliquary on the feast, on the Saturday before the first Monday of May, and on 16 December. The solid contents become liquid, sometimes bubbling, sometimes only partially. The archbishop tilts the reliquary. The city cheers or goes quiet.
The day itself
When the blood does not liquefy, Naples treats it as a bad omen — the 1980 earthquake is part of that folklore. Popes have knelt there. Francis, in 2015, was present when it liquefied only partially.
What was kept
The ampule is small enough to hold in two hands. It lives in the chapel of the treasury of the cathedral of Naples, with the reliquary of the head, and it is brought out on 19 September, on the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, and on 16 December, the feast of the patronage. The archbishop or his delegate holds the reliquary, turns it, and the congregation watches to see whether the dark mass loosens, runs, and changes colour. A deacon stands by with the cathedral diary. Failures are written down as carefully as liquefactions. On 21 March 2015, during a visit of Pope Francis, the blood liquefied partially while he was holding the reliquary; the pope’s remark, that the saint had half-answered, is part of the day’s record. None of this is a chemical identification published by a laboratory that was allowed to open the glass. The city has refused that opening for centuries. What exists is the diary, the crowd, and a sealed vessel.
Reading
How to read The Blood of St. Januarius
This is a civic miracle. Faith and municipal identity are braided so tightly that a theologian has to speak softly. The Catholic claim is modest: God may honor a martyr by a sign in his blood. The Neapolitan claim is louder: this is our saint, and he is still not done with us.
Blood that will not stay dead is, at Easter, the whole Gospel. That it should be the blood of a bishop in a glass vial is a local dialect of that sentence.
Church status
How this sign has been received
Long veneration
The liquefaction is a permitted, public, episcopally conducted rite of the Church of Naples. The Holy See has not issued a scientific definition of the contents. Veneration of St. Januarius is universal as a martyr; the liquefaction is a local wonder of immemorial standing.
Investigation
What has been examined
Hypotheses include thixotropic gels (a substance that liquefies when moved), a mixture of iron compounds, and fraud. Some chemists have made analogues that liquefy when shaken. The ampule, however, is sealed, old, and not available for an invasive modern sampling that would settle composition. Partial liquefactions, failures, and the independence from simple shaking in some accounts keep the file open. Science does not currently close it; neither does it kneel.
Sources
- Cathedral of Naples, diary of the liquefactions
- Acta of St. Januarius; local chronicles from 1389
For the classroom
The Blood of St. Januarius (First recorded liquefaction 1389; martyr c. 305, Naples). Grade in this encyclopedia: Long veneration. A sealed vial of dark, solid matter, kept in the cathedral of Naples, becomes liquid several times a year in the sight of a packed church. It has done this for centuries. No one has a laboratory-complete explanation that the city accepts.
