and the grace of working miracles, she was the subject of extraordinary ecstasies and raptures, which were prolonged from days to weeks. She died, 17 August, 1308, at three o’clock in the morning, and when her heart was extracted from her body this was opened and therein impressed upon the very flesh were seen a figure of Christ crucified, the scourge, the Crown of Thorns, the column, the lance, three nails, the sponge and reed. This relic is venerated at Montefalco to-day. Even now her body lies there perfect and intact. The hands and face are clearly visible, exquisitely pale and lovely, untouched by any fleck of corruption. It has not been embalmed, but Lorenzo Tardy says that throughout Italy of all the bodies of Saints which are venerated incorrupt the body of S. Clare of Montefalco is the loveliest and most free from any spot or blemish during the passing years.
Moreover when her heart was opened the blood flowed forth in great abundance and was carefully collected in a glass vial. Although normally coagulated it has preserved in colour a bright fresh red as though newly spilled. At rare intervals this blood liquefies and becomes from being opaque and congealed, humid, lucent, transparent, and freely-flowing. On occasion it has been known actually to spume and bubble. There are ample records that this took place in 1495, 1500, 1508, 1570, 1600, and 1618.[70]
It is known that new blood has frequently oozed from the arm of S. Nicolas, O.S.A., which is preserved at Tolentino, but the most famous of these blood-miracles is, of course, that of S. Januarius, the Patron of Naples. Here the blood of the Saint which is contained in two phials, enclosed in a silver reliquary, is held out by the officiating priest eighteen times in the year before the congregation in the Cathedral. Upon the altar is exposed the silver bust containing the Head of the Saint. After an interval, sometimes a space of hardly more than two minutes and sometimes (but very rarely) well nigh an hour the congealed mass in the phials becomes crimson and liquid, and on occasion froths and bubbles up within the ampolla.[71] Science having exhausted itself to find some explanation of the phenomenon confesses a miracle. The same liquefaction takes place with regard to some other Relics of peculiar sanctity, the blood of S.
