5 August: Feast of Our Lady of the Snows – MARY! HELP US!

In Rome on 5 August 358, there was a miraculous snow fall to indicate the location of the Basilica to be built in honor of the mother of God. On the anniversary, white rose petals fall from the ceiling of the Basilica during the Gloria.

On August 5 the traditional Roman calendar celebrates the Dedication of St. Mary of the Snows, In Dedicatione S. Mariae ad Nives, a feast in the 1962 Missale Romanum. Its title recalls the Roman tradition that, during the pontificate of Pope Liberius, a snowfall covered the Esquiline Hill in the heat of August, indicating the place where a church in honor of the Blessed Virgin was to be built. The basilica that now stands there, Santa Maria Maggiore, was rebuilt by Pope Sixtus III shortly after the Council of Ephesus proclaimed Mary Theotokos, Mother of God.  St. Mary Major is also called the “Liberian Basilica”.

The feast therefore is a nexus of Roman memory, Marian devotion, and the mystery of the Incarnation. The white snow is an image of Mary’s purity, while the basilica Sat. Mary Major itself stands as a monumental confession in stone and art to the world that the Child born of her is truly God made man. Dom Prosper Guéranger called the Basilica “the first place among our Lady’s churches in the city, and indeed in the world,” because of “the solemn and miraculous circumstances of its origin.”

Let us ask Our Mother, the Mother of the Church, to guide the Church through the Scylla and Charybdis in which we are presently caught.  In a moment of contradictions – such as a snowfall in Rome during August – she can lead us out of anything our pilots get us into.

El 5 de agosto la Iglesia celebra a Nuestra Señora de las Nieves en la Basílica de Santa María la Mayor, el principal santuario mariano de Occidente. Según la tradición, en 352 la Virgen se apareció a un matrimonio romano y les pidió levantar una iglesia donde la nieve cayera… pic.twitter.com/5Vw4DfcM6L

— ACI Prensa (@aciprensa) August 5, 2026