Our Lady of the Snows

Today we remember the dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, on the Esquiline Hill, the oldest Marian shrine in the West. The Hieronymian Martyrology already placed it on August 5. It was Pope Sixtus III who had it built, right after the Council of Ephesus had proclaimed Mary Mother of God. And that is why the basilica is what it is: the fifth-century mosaics that decorate its nave and triumphal arch are among the oldest and most beautiful things in Rome. The name “of the Snows,” on the other hand, comes from a legend that spread much later. It says that on the night between August 4 and 5 in the year 358, Our Lady appeared in a dream to a Roman patrician and to Pope Liberius, letting them know she would make snow appear on the spot where she wanted a church. In the morning, in the middle of a Roman summer, the Esquiline was white, and the pope marked out the church’s outline there. Every year, on August 5, Saint Mary Major remembers that story by letting a shower of white petals fall from the ceiling during Mass. The title spread everywhere: in Italy there are hundreds of churches of Our Lady of the Snows, often in the mountains, where snow needs no miracles. If your name is Nives or Bianca (names that recall snow and whiteness), today is your name day.