So, to end my wondering as per the post today, the blood of Saint Januarius did liquefy, as it does a few times per year, by all accounts, miraculously. At least, there is no scientific explanation for the blood of this fourth-century martyr-bishop not to have completely and irrevocably dried up. The times it has not liquefied, according to local legend, portends some sort of disaster.
To this writer, this correlation borders – I say borders, but perhaps does not quite tip over – on superstition, or at least to some sort of exaggeration of religious sentiment. Rather, the liquefying blood, as our parish priest said in his sermon this morning, is a sign of our future resurrection, where there will be no decay, nor death, but only life eternal, with our bodies, made of resurrected and glorified ‘flesh and blood’, as was, and is, Christ’s own body.
What that means, well, I can’t wait to find out, by the grace of God.