NAPLES (LifeSiteNews) — The blood of St. Januarius has miraculously liquified for the fourth time in 2025, in keeping with what is traditionally a tri-annual wonder, but this year also occurred in August for the first time in centuries.

The blood of the patron saint of Naples was liquified on December 16 this year, as usual, the abbot of the Chapel of the Treasure of St. Januarius, Monsignor Vincenzo De Gregorio, announced.

The miracle of the liquefaction of St. Januarius’ blood was first reported in 1389, about a millennium after the bishop of Naples was martyred at the hands of  Diocletian. Since then, it has occurred on at least three specific dates every year: the saint’s feast day of September 19, the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, and December 16, in memory of the miracle attributed to the saint who protected the city during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Earlier this year, St. Januarius’ blood liquefied for the first time in August since 1389. The people of Naples welcomed this sign as a special blessing on the Church and the world.

Once in a while, the blood of the saint does not liquify on one of these usual dates, and historically, this has been taken as a bad omen, as it usually precedes a calamity of some kind. 

“When the blood failed to liquefy on September 19, 1980, a massive earthquake hit southern Italy two months later, killing more than 3,000 people,” Reuters noted, which was the most devastating Italian natural disaster since 1945. The blood also failed to liquefy in 1973, when Naples was struck by a cholera epidemic.

Since then, the saint’s blood has failed to liquefy on December 16, 2016, and December 16, 2020.

Dom Propser Guéranger (1805-1875) has pointed out that the miracle serves as the saint’s perpetual “preaching of the Gospel to every creature; for his miraculous blood perpetuates the testimony he bore to Christ.”

The following is the legend concerning St. Januarius and the sharers in his glorious martyrdom.

During the persecution of the Christians under Diocletian and Maximian, Januarius, bishop of Beneventum, was brought before Timothy, president of Campania, at Nola, for the profession of the Christian faith. There his constancy was tried in various ways. He was cast into a burning furnace, but escaped unhurt, not even his garments nor a hair of his head being injured by the flames. This enraged the president, who commanded the martyr’s body to be so stretched that all his joints and nerves were displaced. Meanwhile Festus his deacon, and Desiderius a lector, were seized, loaded with chains, and dragged, together with the bishop, before the president’s chariot to Pozzuolo. There they were cast into a dungeon, where they found the deacons Sosius of Misenum and Proculus of Pozzuolo, with Eutyches and Acutius laymen all condemned to be thrown to wild beasts.

The following day they were all exposed in the amphitheater; but the beasts, forgetting their natural ferocity, crouched at the feet of Januarius. Timothy, attributing this to magical arts, condemned the martyrs of Christ to be beheaded; but as he was pronouncing the sentence, he was suddenly struck blind. However, at the prayer of Januarius he soon recovered his sight; on account of which miracle, about five thousand men embraced the Christian faith. The ungrateful judge was in no way softened by the benefit conferred upon him; on the contrary, he was enraged by so many conversions; and, fearing the emperor’s edicts, he ordered the holy bishop and his companions to be beheaded.

Eager to secure, each for itself, a patron before God among these holy martyrs, the neighboring towns provided burial places for their bodies. In obedience to a warning from heaven, the Neopolitans took the body of St. Januarius, and placed it first at Beneventum, then in the monastery of Monte Vergine, and finally in the principal church at Naples, where it became illustrious for many miracles. One of the most memorable of these was the extinction of a fiery eruption of Mount Vesuvius, when the terrible flames threatened with destruction not only the neighborhood but even distant parts. Another remarkable miracle is seen even to the present day, namely; when the martyr’s blood, which is preserved congealed in a glass vial, is brought in presence of his head, it liquefies and boils up in a wonderful manner, as if it had been but recently shed.