A dozen other nuns, similarly clad, were teetering on high ladders picking oranges

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 198. 

In the 1950s—and for all I know still today—members of the Foreign Service traveling for the first time to a new post normally came by land or sea, rather than by air. They were bringing with them all the household goods that they would be needing for the next two or three years, and quite possibly their car as well; in such circumstances flying was clearly out of the question. Anne and I settled Artemis once again at Chantilly with my mother, then sailed on the SS Esperia, an Italian ship of the Adriatica Line. The journey took a week. Our first port of call was Naples; and I had asked Raffaellina Guidotti, wife of the Italian Ambassador in Belgrade (and later in London) who was herself a Neapolitan, to recommend a place to visit that would be off the beaten track, somewhere generally unknown where we should never otherwise go. Unhesitatingly, she had recommended the convent of S. Gregorio Armeno. We found it at last, tucked away in a rabbit warren of tiny streets in the old city, and knocked on the door.

It was opened to us by a middle-aged nun in a long black habit with a three-inch scarlet stripe running down the front. This was already dramatic enough; but she then led us into a magnificent sunlit garden with a mass of baroque statuary, in which—in a scene somehow reminiscent of the opening chorus of a Rossini opera—a dozen other nuns, similarly clad, were teetering on high ladders picking oranges. We were enchanted, and gladly accepted when the first nun offered to show us the church and treasure. Only when we reached the sacristy did she tell us of the local miracle. This, she explained, was the liquefaction of the blood of St. Patricia. We knew of course of S. Januarius—S. Gennaro—whose blood annually liquefies in Naples Cathedral; but we had heard nothing of Patricia, who turned out to be an early Christian saint—daughter, the nun erroneously informed us, of Constantine the Great—who had died in the odor of sanctity and whose body had remained for centuries uncorrupted. One day, she continued, an irresponsible pilgrim had pulled out one of her teeth to keep as a relic; this had resulted in an instant gush of blood, which he had collected in a glass phial that he fortunately chanced to have about his person. Would we, she asked, be interested in seeing the miracle?

Yes, we said, of course we would. Without further ado she opened a cabinet and withdrew an elaborate reliquary containing a glass phial about the size of a tennis ball, within which was a thick coating of a dark and unpleasant looking substance mildly suggestive of very old chocolate. Cradling it between her hands, she began to tilt it from side to side, first to the left, then to the right, then back to the left again. This went on for two or three minutes, after which we saw that the contents of the phial had suddenly acquired a surface, and that surface, as she continued to sway the reliquary, was remaining horizontal. Unquestionably, what had been a solid was now a liquid. She finally pointed out several framed certificates hanging on the wall nearby, in which a number of distinguished university professors testified that they had witnessed the miracle, and that there was no scientific explanation, physical or chemical, that could possibly account for it. Duly impressed, we thanked her, made a small contribution to the convent’s upkeep and took our leave.