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| West end of Rome's St. Mary Major. |
If
today were not a Sunday, the new Roman Calendar would mark the dedication of
St. Mary Major, Rome's great church of the Virgin. From the Middle Ages until 1969, this feast
was kept under the title of Our Lady of the Snow in memory of the legend that
the Virgin herself caused a snow to fall on August 5th on the site where the
basilica should stand and that its outline was traced in the snow by Pope Liberius.
The Miracle of the Snow is still commemorated at the Basilica on August 5, when
a shower of white rose petals falls from the basilica's coffered ceiling.
The
legend of the miraculous snow only arose several centuries after the building
of the Basilica and one Church commission had recommended that it be removed
from the Breviary as early as 1741, but the legend remained in place in the
annual reading until 1969. It ran as
follows:
Under the pontificate of Liberius, John, a Roman patrician, and his wife who was of an equally noble race, having no children to whom they might leave their estates, vowed their whole fortune to the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, begging her most earnestly and continually to make known to them by some means in what pious work she wished them to employ the money. The Blessed Virgin Mary graciously heard their heartfelt prayers and vows, and answered them by a miracle.
