St. Januarius

Who they were

Januarius, San Gennaro, was bishop of Benevento, martyred near Pozzuoli in the Diocletianic persecution while visiting imprisoned Christians. Naples took his relics and across seventeen centuries made him the most intimate civic patron anywhere in Christendom.

The centrepiece needs saying carefully and completely. A sealed ampoule held to contain his blood has, since the fourteenth century, repeatedly liquefied when brought near his relics on his feasts. Naples gathers to watch three times a year, greets liquefaction with civic joy and its failure with civic dread. The Church permits and shares the devotion and has never defined the event as miraculous. Scientific proposals exist and none of them has closed the case. All three of those things are true at once, and a description is not an adjudication. The modern patronage is the warm turn: Gennaro of the blood became the patron of blood donors and blood banks.

Why people turn to St. Januarius

Neapolitan and Italian American families, San Gennaro festivals included. Blood donors, which is the rare patronage where the devotion has an obvious next action attached to it. And people living in volcano and disaster zones, with St. Luigi Orione.

How to ask their intercession

Before donating, one decade on the way to the drive. If you have been meaning to and have not, that is the whole prompt.