Januarius
Januarius (in Latin: Ianuarius; Neapolitan and Italian: Gennaro), also known as Januarius I of Benevento, was Bishop of Benevento and is a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church. While no contemporary sources on his life are preserved, later sources say he died during the Great Persecution, which ended with Diocletian's retirement in 305.
Januarius is the patron saint of Naples, where the faithful gather three times a year in Naples Cathedral to witness the liquefaction of a sample of his holy blood kept in a sealed ampoule.
Quotes about
[edit]- It has been said that Saint Januarius is the soul of Naples. One could say even more. Saint Januarius is the sentiment of a people who, despite the defeats, disappointments, and bitterness suffered throughout their long and painful history, still find the strength to hope, to fight, and to live.
- Vittorio Gleijeses, Feste, Farina e Forca, foreword to the 1976 edition by Michele Prisco, Società Editrice Napoletana, Napoli, 19773 revised and updated. Ch. San Gennaro, Feste, p. 53
- The miracle of San Gennaro has always been and will continue to be for a long time to come a major event for the great family of the Neapolitan people.
All the governments that have ruled over that land, where it is easier to tyrannize men than to emancipate them, know this.
- Franco Mistrali, Da Palermo a Gaeta: storia popolare della campagna dell'Italia meridionale, Francesco Pagnoni Tipografo Editore, Milano, 1861, p. 44.
- The Neapolitan is outside history; or rather, he has been so deeply involved in it and so mistreated, mocked, and ridiculed that he has ended up stepping out of time, creating his own eternal environment dominated, of course, by Saint Januarius and the Kabbalah.
What else could he do with his problems unresolved and postponed indefinitely?
- Domenico Rea, San Gennaro, in Opere, Mondadori, 2005, p. 1520.
- With the kings, their heirs, relatives, in-laws, and friends discarded, the Neapolitans were left with their patron saint, in the very sense of a father from whom they could hope not for miracles, but for bread in the wild. From this legitimate desire to "a barbaric cult of blood." There is a big difference. San Gennaro, largely manipulated by the clergy to keep the unwary in check, became a weapon of blackmail in their hands in the unyielding hope of taming those who had and could.
- Domenico Rea, San Gennaro, in Opere, Mondadori, 2005, p. 1521-1522.
- The quotation is taken from the entry ‘'San Gennaro’' in the ‘'Encyclopedia of Religions’', published by Vallecchi. Cf. Domenico Rea, ‘'San Gennaro’', ‘'Opere’', Mondadori, 2005, p. 1520.
- At the top of all the saints in Naples is he, Saint Januarius of the blood. If Naples is a “city of blood,” an “ir haddammìm” as we read in the sacred stories about Nineveh and Jerusalem, it is thanks to him. [...] He, Saint Gennaro of the blood, known in the dialect as simply “sangennà,” is the fertility of the sacred in the middle of the Gulf of Naples, the menstruation of the sky that must flow and give power to women, to the soil, to the sea, to the red sauce of tomatoes and fish that makes up the soup of our own blood.
- Erri De Luca, Napòlide, Libreria Dante & Descartres, Napoli, reprint 2018. ISBN 88-88142-88-6. Ch. Sacro di Sud, p. 71.
- I know that the religious sentiment of our people is often, and wrongly, labeled as colorful folklore, in which legend and magic, sacred and profane, merge in our millennial history, which, in the eyes of cold secularism, appears incapable of distinguishing superstition from faith. It is true that much superstition still creeps into the authentic Christian message, but I believe that superstition should not be confused with popular piety. This people, who, since the first liquefaction of blood, have taken St. Januarius as the protector of their city, know how to grasp, in the manifestation of the miracle, the profound meaning of faith: the hope of resurrection. It is an inexpressible mystery which, in order to be conceived, requires symbols capable of representing the link between pain and redemption. The blood that has miraculously come back to life is a sign that refers to the immortality of the soul, to life beyond death, to the resurrection of the flesh.
- Crescenzio Sepe, Il Sangue e la Speranza: messaggio alla diocesi, Napoli, Solennità di San Gennaro, 2006, riportato in parrocchiarotonda.it. Ch. Un sentire altro, p. 7
- That blessed Blood remains frozen and hard all year round, as if it were stone, and then, on the first Saturday of May, it is brought in procession to collide with the Head, whereupon it liquefies and turns red, so that it seems to have just flowed from a vein, and it is considered a bad omen in Naples every time this miraculous effect does not occur, as it has been observed that some kind of misfortune always befalls the city, as if that saint took the city of Naples under his protection and, foreseeing its misfortunes, signaled them in this way.
- Tommaso Costo,Giunta, overo Terza parte del compendio dell'istoria del regno di Napoli, appresso Barezzo Barezzi, Venezia, 1591, p. 57.
