St. Mary Major
One
Today, August 5, is the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica in Rome, St. Mary Major. It is also the feast of Our Lady of the Snows as the two are connected. This feast day commemorates a powerful intervention of the Mother of God in the world.
In 358 AD there was a Roman aristocrat named Giovanni. He and his wife, having no children, made a vow to donate their possessions to the Virgin Mary. They prayed that she might make known to them how they were to dispose of their property in her honor. Mary appeared to Giovanni in a dream on August 4 and told him to build a church on the site where he would find snow the following morning. Upon rising the bewildered nobleman went immediately to tell Pope Liberius of his dream. But that same night, Mary had also appeared to the pope and told him he would find snow on the Esquiline Hill, and there he was to outline the dimensions of a new church. On August 5, at the height of the Roman summer, snow fell during the night on the summit of the Esquiline Hill. In obedience to this vision of the Virgin Mary, the pope outlined the size of the Church in the snow, and the noble couple initiated the building of the basilica of St. Mary Major on the very spot that was covered with snow.
Two
In many of Our Lady’s apparitions, she asks for a Church to be built. This is a key request in most of her apparitions and has deep theological significance as she brings us to her divine son. Our Lady is not worshipped by Catholics—we don’t make sacrifice to her nor regard her as a goddess. She is a creature, but her favors reveal how God desires to unite men with Himself, drawing us intimately into His life and work, so much so that He identifies with us as a head to a body. “Whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do unto me” (Mt 25:40). The Blessed Virgin Mary has a unique and privileged role in this life and work of Jesus’: to be His Mother. And is she is the mother of Jesus includes mothering His family, the Church, His mystical body. This is why she asks for the building of churches in her messages, to continually and mystically birth Jesus. Her requests further underscore her role to lead us to her Son in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and especially the Eucharist, the true Mystical Body. Here is where the Father is worshiped in the Son through the Spirit. Her role is to draw us up into the very life of the most Holy Trinity itself and there we offer our worship to God alone.
Three
Our Lady used snow as the special sign to indicate where this wonderful and grace-filled church would be built. The whiteness of the snowflake symbolizes the purity of grace that Our Lord showers upon us in the Sacraments and in meditation. Snow looks the same when falling, but each flake is as different one from another as each human is as different. Each grace falls upon our souls matching our uniqueness, bringing us the purity of Christ as it melts into our hearts when we pray and perform acts of charity. The Holy Sacraments act as the flowing, luminescent clouds that bring to us this heavenly dew. Unlike like snow, however, grace doesn’t merely cover us, but penetrates us and transforms us from within, healing our wounds, perfecting our faculties, and elevating us in our nature. As the prophet Ezekiel foretold, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleaned from all your uncleanness…a new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you…and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ez 36: 25-27). Lord, through Our Lady, you grant us many sanctifying graces. May we receive and respond with the same readiness as the builders of this Basilica to serve you with heroic generosity.
Four
Among the many treasures of this great Basilica is a painting some attribute to St. Luke, called Salus Populi Romani, or Our Lady, Health of the People of Rome. Around the year 600 AD, Pope St. Gregory the Great processed with this image around the streets of Rome to end the black plague. As he made it to the mausoleum of Hadrian near the Vatican, he witnessed St. Michael the Archangel above the mausoleum sheath his sword and disappear as a sign of the end to the plague. That mausoleum today is now known as the Castel San Angelo, or Castle of the Holy Angel. Other popes have since likewise processed the image around the city to end other terrible plagues. Biblically, plagues were always the result of unrepentant sin, the worse plague. God does not cause these pestilences but rather allows them to teach and to purify our souls from sin. In the New Testament, Jesus offers Our Lady to the Church to intercede and protect the people of God from sin and its allures. Dear Mary, health of the People of God, intercede and protect us from the plagues of sickness and wickedness, and deliver us oh Holy Mother of God, from the plots of the enemy who seeks to overthrow the Church of your Son. Restore us to physical, moral, and spiritual health, through Christ our Lord, Amen.
Five
When this apparition occurred in In the Fourth Century, Christendom was plagued by various heresies denying the full divinity of Christ. Had these errors taken hold, our relationship with God and with neighbor would be drastically different. If we have no divine destiny then we can’t live according to divine virtues. Mercy, forgiveness, sexual self-control, respect for the dignity of each individual person would vanish from our collective behavior. We would be left with what we had before Christ— the plague of brutality and dictatorial control. Our Lady comes precisely at crucial historical moments to confront and help us defeat the plagues of viciousness and sickness. Are we not facing similar circumstances today with physical, moral, and spiritual plagues? Let us repeat the words of St. John Paul II which he uttered many times in this basilica, “Mary, I am all yours, and all that I have is yours. May You be my guide in everything!”