Story by Joe Pisani
It rarely snows in Rome, and certainly never in August, the hottest month of the year … except once.
According to a pious legend, which inspired one of the oldest devotions to Our Lady, a patrician Roman couple had no heirs so they prayed to the Blessed Mother and designated her to receive their wealth. On a hot August night, she appeared to them in a dream and requested that they build a church in her honor at the top of Esquiline Hill in Rome.
She told them that she would mark the exact site, and on the morning of August 5, 352 A.D., the snow that fell overnight outlined the perimeter for a church honoring the Virgin. Pope Liberius, (352-366), who is also said to have had a vision of the Blessed Mother, undertook the project.
He dedicated the site to the Madonna della Neve, or Our Lady of the Snows, which is one of the oldest titles for the Blessed Mother. The first church was completed in two years and was named the Basilica Liberiana, in honor of the pope who consecrated it. It was rebuilt by Pope Sixtus III after the Council of Ephesus in 431, which reaffirmed Mary’s title as “Mother of God.” The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, popularly known as Our Lady of the Snows, is the largest Marian shrine in Rome and one of the four major basilicas in the city.
It contains relics from the crib of the Christ child and has been the site of countless miraculous and historical events. It is where the Blessed Mother is said to have placed the infant Jesus in the arms of St. Cajetan of Thiene on Christmas Eve in 1517.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, celebrated his first Mass in the Chapel of the Manger on Christmas morning in 1538. And Dominican St. Pius V prayed the Rosary there, pleading for Our Lady’s intercession in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, when Christian sailors defeated the much larger fleet of the Ottoman Turks.
Another tradition holds that St. Luke painted an image of Our Lady, titled “Protectress of the Roman People,” which hangs in one of the chapels. Before Pope Francis leaves on a pontifical trip and when he returns, he prays before this portrait and offers flowers to the Blessed Mother.
Even today, the miraculous snowfall is recalled on August 5, the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows, and the Memorial of the Dedication of St. Mary Major.
Each year at the conclusion of Mass, white rose petals fall from the dome of the Chapel of Our Lady. At sunset, artificial snow falls and digital light shows are held in the square outside the basilica. The snow is said to symbolize the purity of Mary, her graces and blessings.
In the United States, the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois, has held an annual “Way of Lights” Christmas display since 1970, honoring the birth of Christ as the Light of the World. The shrine, which is run by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, is visited by more than one million people each year.
The devotion to Our Lady of the Snows came to the Midwest in 1941 through Fr. Paul Schulte, O.M.I., a priest and pilot known as the “flying priest of the Arctic” because of his efforts to bring medical supplies and assistance to Oblate missions north of the Arctic Circle. His personal devotion to Our Lady of the Snows inspired him to built a chapel in her honor and foster devotion to her with a perpetual novena, that has inspired thousands of people and culminates on August 5, the date of the miraculous snowfall.