San Gennaro, the blood has not melted. “Not even the miracle of the darkest year”

The “relatives” are the strangest. “We knew it, we knew it. There are too many rascals who think more about shopping than praying. The 21st will be as dramatic as the 20th, ”one of them prayed to himself in a low voice. The atmosphere, thick with anticipation, ends in a growl on the lips. Sad, lonely and definitive, Osvaldo Soriano would have said, to describe this last part of the year in one Naples pierced to the heart again. After the death of Maradona, now it is the turn of the blood, coagulated like a stone in the blister.

the “relatives of San Gennaro”, they continue to sing songs so that it returns to its natural state, ready to wave the white handkerchief to announce the miracle. In the popular imagination they descend from Patron and Eusebia, the nurse who would collect the blood after the decapitation. They are called “relatives”, because they are linked to the Saint by an atavistic familiarity, with such confidence that they direct him “cara ‘ngialluta” (the golden color of the bust) and, if necessary, reproach him when the prodigy arrives late. Each delay is, in fact, a negative omen, a prophecy of doom. And this time Anna, the “head of the family” does not hesitate to predict how she was a virologist at CTS: “The virus will stay with us for years, this vaccine will not be enough because Covid is a monster. We are pessimistic, depressed and blasphemous: the Saint will have to make a great effort to forgive us ”.

The blood prodigy is not renewed. At 9 in the Cathedral of Naples theabbot of the Chapel of San Gennaro, Vincenzo De Gregorio, announces the disaster in front of the 12 prelate chaplains. “When we took the case out of the safe, the the blood was absolutely solid and that’s how it stayed, ”he explains with an air of annoyance, as if Gennaro had wanted to annoy him, the new archbishop, Don Mimmo Battaglia, and Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe who were to celebrate their farewell with the last white cloth stick. .

By September the blood had melted

At 9 in the cathedral there are few faithful. The date is considered the “lesser” of the three (the other two are 1September 9, San Gennaro, and the Saturday before the first Sunday in May with the crowded procession), but as soon as the news spreads, it is as if a roar shakes the entrails of the alleys: from Forcella and Decumani it is an avalanche of people with terrified eyes, as if haunted by ghosts.

Yellow face Melt it Do it, do it miracle Do it for these people It’s healthy and it’s not water Enzo Avitabile taking up an old popular prayer. Yes, because if it doesn’t melt, that blood takes with it misfortunes and misfortunes, misery and adversity. On the occasions where it stayed strong, there have been ailments for the city of Naples and beyond: in September 1939 The Second World War broke out, in 1973 the cholera epidemic caused by murderous mussels, while in 1980 the dramatic earthquake that devastated Naples and Irpinia. Abbot De Gregorio throws water on the fire of anguish: “In recent times in December the blood usually melts with delay. But the celebration lasts only one day, the 16th. If the miracle is going to happen tomorrow 17 we will not know.” And Sepe consoles: “It is important to feel united”.

We pray in the Cathedral until evening, but also the last attempt, at 6.30 pm, fails. Night falls accompanied by a feeling of desolation that extends over the neo-Gothic façade designed at the end of the 19th century by Errico Alvino. “In 2019 the blood was liquefied, then in 2020 the end of the world came,” argues Marquis Riccardo Imperiali de los Príncipes de Francavilla, a member of the San Gennaro County Council. What does this pattern closure mean then? kidding, there will surely be the third wave of Covid. “