Miracle Liquefication of Saint Januarius’ Blood in Naples, Italy, on his Feast Day - Archbishop Appeals to the Saint for Peace - VIDEO

The traditional miracle of Saint Januarius (San Gennaro) was repeated on his Feast Day September 19. The announcement of the traditional liquefaction of the blood of Naples' patron saint was made at 10:04 a.m. to the faithful who had been crowding the Cathedral since the early hours of the morning, and greeted with thunderous applause.

Celebrations began in the cathedral at 8:00 a.m. with Holy Mass, followed by the reading of the Passion at 8:45 a.m. At 10:00 a.m., the Archbishop of Naples, Don Mimmo Battaglia, visited the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro.
he relics were brought to the Cathedral's high altar for the solemn Eucharistic celebration, during which the miraculous event of the liquefaction was announced to the faithful present.

At the end of the Mass, the Cardinal, Archbishop Battaglia walked down the central nave and, once outside, showed the city and the faithful the vials containing the blood of the holy martyr.

In his homily, Archbishop Battaglia, made an emotional appeal for peace (excerpts):
Sisters and brothers, this year I would like to ask San Gennaro for a grace. But not for today. For next year. It's a strange grace, I know. Perhaps even too great. But saints also serve this purpose: to remind us that there are prayers that it would be cowardly not to have the courage to say. Gennaro, if your blood must shed, let it shed again. But grant me this grace: when we return here next year, let the only blood we have to talk about be yours. The only blood shed. The only blood we will have waited to see flow. Yours. No one else. Because I no longer want to come here, before your vial, and have to say that your blood resembles that of murdered children. I no longer want to have to say that your blood ideally mixes with that of innocent victims. I no longer want to mention Palestine. I no longer want to mention Ukraine. I no longer want to add the name of yet another wounded land, yet another destroyed city, yet another mother clutching a body too small between her arms. "The arms. Not because I want to forget them. But because I want there to be no more need. I am tired of a humanity that first produces victims and then builds monuments to mourn them. I am tired of our perfect commemorations and our impossible peaces. I am tired of seeing man become very good at counting the dead and terribly incapable of stopping doing so." Thus began the homily of the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Domenico Battaglia, on the occasion of the celebrations at the Cathedral. 

He continued, "In front of you, Gennaro, today I don't want to get used to it. Because perhaps the greatest evil isn't even war. The greatest evil is getting used to war. It's waking up in the morning, turning on a phone, seeing a city burning and still having breakfast. It's hearing the death toll and no longer seeing the dead. Fifty. A hundred. A thousand. As if beyond a certain number, pain ceased to have a name. As if a child who died a hundred times became a statistic. No. Blood is not a statistic. Blood always has a name. It has a mother. It has a home. It has a smell. It has someone who that evening will continue to set an extra place, at least with their eyes. And that's why today's Gospel scares me. Jesus says: "If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you." The world. Not this beautiful earth. Not the men and women God loves. In the Gospel of John, the 'world' is also a mechanism. It is that invisible system that begins to function every time a man decides that the life of a Another is worth less than one's own. The world begins there. When the other becomes an obstacle. When the other becomes a number. When the other becomes a target. When the other is no longer a brother, but an enemy. And then everything becomes possible. Bombs become possible. Reprisals. Massacres. Graves. Children under the rubble. It even becomes possible to invent elegant words so as not to call things by their name. But a mother who loses a son does not know the language of geopolitics. She knows only one word. Son. And that word should be enough to stop the world. For this reason today, before Gennaro's blood, I would like a cry to come from Naples. Not a statement. Not a cautious declaration. A cry. Stop. Stop. You who hold weapons in your hands. You who give orders. You who draw borders on maps while others mark them with blood. You who think a victory can still be called a victory when it must be built on the body of a child. Stop. Because there is no flag big enough to cover the coffin of a innocent. There is no reason of state capable of returning a son to his mother. No military victory can transform a child's blood into something just. Peace will certainly need politics. It will need diplomacy. It will need law. But even before that, it will need something much simpler and infinitely more difficult: recognizing in the other a human being. Just a human being. And that should be enough. But it would be too easy today to look far away. Palestine. Ukraine. The wars of the world. Because the Gospel never allows us to use distant pain to ignore what is happening right under our own noses," Battaglia continued.



“Do me a favor for next year”

"But this year, Gennaro, I want to ask you more. It's not enough for me to ask you to melt our hearts. I ask you for something almost impossible. And perhaps that's precisely why I ask it of you. Grant me the grace of next year. May we enter this Cathedral on September 19th of next year without having to add another war to the list. May no one have bombed a house. May no one have shot a boy. May no one have dug a grave. May no mother have had to recognize her son from a shoe, a photograph, a scrap of clothing. May the powerful have finally had the courage to be greater than their weapons. May those who live by war have discovered shame. 

 May the children of Palestine be able to simply be children again. May the children of Ukraine be able to learn the sound of the night without having to distinguish thunder from a missile. May the word "tomorrow" once again mean something in every land. And allow me, Gennaro, to give you a wish. A wish I would like to turn into a promise. I would like that next year, when we return here to celebrate your feast once again, we could come before you not only to ask for something, but to thank you for something that has happened in our city. I would like to be able to say: thank you, Gennaro, because Naples has finally chosen to care for its children and its young people. Because we have learned not to notice them only when a tragedy erupts, when a young person dies, when a suburb becomes the face of a wound we should have seen sooner. Thank you because we have learned to care sooner.

So today I ask you. As a son of this city. As a bishop. As a man. Gennaro, if your blood wants to liquefy, let it liquefy again. But then enough. No more blood. No more murdered boys. No more children under the rubble. No more childless mothers. No more men convinced that killing is a solution. No more mafias. No more Camorra. No more wars. Grant me this grace, Gennaro. Make sure that when we return here, a year from now, the only blood we will have seen flow is yours. Only yours. And perhaps then we will understand that the miracle, finally, didn't happen in the vial. It happened in the world. Amen," Battaglia concluded.Not because we've solved everything, nor because we've become a perfect city. But because we've chosen a direction: standing with the littlest, pooling our strengths, leaving no one behind. And then, yes, Gennaro. Next year we'll return. We'll open that safe. We'll take the vial. We'll raise it again before this city. And someone will ask: "Has the blood liquefied?" And I'd like to be able to answer: Yes. It has liquefied. And it's the only one. The only blood shed that we remember today. The only blood we've waited for. The only blood that flows before our eyes. Because outside this Cathedral, no man has shed the blood of his brother. That, yes, would be the miracle. Not just the blood of a martyr turning liquid. But a humanity that finally stops shedding the blood of its children. And a city that becomes a bond of brotherhood. So today I ask you. As a son of this city. As a bishop. As a man. Gennaro, if your blood wants to liquefy, let it liquefy again. But then enough. Enough blood. No more murdered young men. No more children under the rubble. No more childless mothers. No more men convinced that killing is a solution. No more mafias. No more Camorras. No more wars. Grant me this grace, Gennaro. May when we return here, a year from now, the only blood we've seen flow be yours. Only yours. And perhaps then we'll understand that the miracle, finally, didn't happen in the vial. It happened in the world. Amen," Battaglia concluded.

Source: https://www.napolitoday.it/attualita/miracolo-san-gennaro-19-settembre-2026.html