John Baptist, of S. Stephen, the Proto-Martyr, of S. Patricia, and especially of S. Pantaleone, Relics of whose blood preserved at the Convent of the Incoronazione, Madrid, at Naples, and at Ravello, liquefy upon the feast day of the Saint afterwards returning to a congealed substance. It would appear a relic of the blood of S. Pantaleone at Valle della Lucarina remains liquid all the year round. As one might expect, sceptics both without—and alas! within the Church have attempted to find some natural explanation, but without avail. One notoriously rationalistic writer is “strongly inclined to believe that such alleged blood-relics always liquefied if they were exposed long enough to light and air,” a suggestion which is demonstrably false. The same maggot-monger has audaciously ventured to declare: “If we could suppose some substance or mixture had been accidentally discovered which hardened when shut up in the dark, but melted more or less rapidly when exposed to the light of day in a warmer atmosphere, it would be easy to understand the multiplication of alleged relics of this character, which undoubtedly seems to have taken place in the latter part of the sixteenth century.” It is instructive to remark what wild hypotheses men will build and what shifts men will seek who endeavour to escape from facts.
On 20 May, 1444, the celebrated missionary and reformer S. Bernardine of Siena died at Aquila in the Abruzzi. It was the Vigil of the Ascension and in the choir the friars were just chanting the Antiphon to the Magnificat, Pater, manifestaui nomen tuum hominibus … ad Te uenio, alleluja. The body was kept in the Church for twenty-six days after death, and what is very remarkable there was a copious flow of blood after twenty-four days. The people of Siena requested that so great a treasure might be handed over to them, but the local magistrates refused to do this, and with obsequies of the greatest splendour, S. Bernardine was laid to rest in the Church of the Coventuals. Six years later, 24 May, 1450, the Saint was solemnly canonized by Nicolas V. On 17 May, 1472, the body, yet without speck or mar, was translated to the new Church of the Observants at Aquila, which had been especially built to receive it, and here it was enclosed in a costly shrine presented by Louis XI of France. This Church having been completely destroyed by an earthquake
