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The vial with the blood of San Gennaro – Ansa
The invocations were not fulfilled, nor were the prayers of the faithful who packed the cathedral of Naples since the morning. There was no miracle, the blood of San Gennaro did not melt.
The city, in fact, celebrates the patron saint on three dates: September 19, December 16, and the first Saturday in May. Three historical-religious dates around which popular piety and the spiritual path of the city revolve. Three gestures of pity that follow each other and reconnect. Everything begins that September 19, 305 when the blood of the martyr bishop is collected in the solfatara of Pozzuoli, after his beheading. It is precisely those blisters that this morning, at 9 in the morning, have been taken from the chapel to the main altar of the Cathedral to await the longed-for miracle of liquefaction. But despite the prayers of the “relatives” of San Gennaro (a group of old women who have been singing litanies and prayers since the 19th century) the miracle did not happen.
The abbot of the Chapel of the Treasury, Monsignor Vincenzo de Gregorio, after opening the safe containing the reliquary with the blood vials, recalled the moment of difficulty: “Blood – he confirmed after a long day of prayer – is strictly solid. God give strength and courage to our people to face this pandemic that is forcing them to rethink their lives and that is causing many problems, especially the weakest and the lonely dead, which are the greatest drama».
At 6:20 p.m., Cardinal Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe also arrived, returning from the meeting of the Campania Episcopal Conference, and knelt in prayer before the blisters that keep the patron’s blood. Then with the reliquary he crossed the central nave to bless the faithful. «We feel part of this very special event: our devotion to the saint. But the lack of prodigy – he explained – is not a harbinger of disasters, epidemics or wars: we are men and women of faith ”.
The vial with the blood of San Gennaro – Lapresse
Neapolitans have always turned to their patron to protect them from natural disasters: crowds of people in the first centuries ran for refuge in the catacombs of Capodimonte. This is what happened in 472, 512 and 685, with the Neapolitan bishops of the time leading the prayers of the people. Then, it became customary to invoke the saint to ask for the end of volcanic phenomena: in 1631, on December 16, the exhibition of the relics was decided and the eruption of Vesuvius was stopped.
More recently, on May 15, 1983, at the conclusion of the XXX Diocesan Synod, the prodigy sealed the event. Recently, on June 17, 2007, during the visit to Naples of Archbishop Chrysostomos II, head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, the prodigious event was repeated. Although it did not happen during the visit of John Paul II in 1990; nor that of Benedict XVI in October 2007, while it dissolved with Pope Francis in March 2015.
Now the blisters will resume on the third date dedicated to the saint: the Saturday before the first Sunday in May. Yesterday, a lot of trepidation for the miracle that did not happen: there is a diary of the canons of the cathedral that recounts the times that the blood did not melt. There are episodes that have marked the city and the Neapolitans, long before Covid-19: the cholera epidemic in Naples in 1973 and the 1980 earthquake. Two disasters preceded by a lost wonder. Then, wars, pestilences, famines: 1939 and 1940, for example, in correspondence with the start of the Second World War and the entry into the conflict in Italy. And, again, in September 1943: the date of the Nazi occupation.
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