The celebration of Our Lady of the Snows is usually timed to coincide with the commemoration of the consecration of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which the Geronymian Martyrology already places on August 5th. This day also commemorates the legendary snow miracle that inspired Pope Liberius to found the sacred structure. The title of Our Lady of the Snows for the Mother of God is associated with the Basilica of Santa Maria ad Nives or Santa Maria della Neve on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, considered to be the oldest Marian sanctuary in the West erected by the Pope. Sixtus III on the site of an ancient Liberian basilica and dedicated to the Mother of God, which the Council of Ephesus solemnly proclaimed as the Mother of God, the Mother of God in Greek.
(Korzym.org/Editor’s Blog, 05/08/2023 – Christina Siccardi) – In the fourth century, when the Church was imbued with the Arian heresy, the Mother of God made itself felt in Rome. The vicar of Christ at that time was Liberius, a pope who succumbed to the errors of Arius, like most of the bishops of that time. It was not a simple weakness, but a real agreement with the error. The Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman states that “the fall of Liberius is a historical fact” (The Arians of the Fourth Century, London, 1876, p. 464).
Only a few bishops, punished by excommunication and exile, resisted: Sant’Athanasio, Sant’Eusebio di Vercelli, San Lucifero di Cagliari, San Dionigi di Milano, Sant’Ilario di Poitiers. In the fifth appendix to his fourth-century Ariani, Newman writes the following, continuing what St. Gregory of Nazianzen recorded in relation to AD 360: “The shepherds certainly did mad things; for, with the exception of a few who, either in their insignificance were ignored, or in their virtue, stood firm and were left as seed and root for a new flowering and rebirth of Israel under the influence of the Holy Spirit, all yielded to compromise, with this only difference, that some gave up at once. , and others later; some were champions and guides in wickedness, while others joined the battle that had already begun, slaves of fear, self-interest, flattery or – more excusable – ignorance” (Orat. XXI. 24).
So, the Mother of God, the Mother of the Church, looked after them then, as She looks after the shepherds today. Tradition tells that at a time when there were no churches or luxurious basilicas in Rome, the Blessed Mary appeared in a dream to a Roman patrician named Giovanni: it was the night of August 4, 352. The Mother of God asked him to build a large church on the spot where it would snow the next morning. The next day the patrician went to Liberius to tell him the dream; the Pope in turn told him that he had had the same vision.
Meanwhile, a miracle happened on the Esquiline Hill, and by order of Liberius, exactly where the snow fell, a plan was drawn for a grandiose basilica, and the sacred building was financed by the patrician Giovanni and his wife, who took the name Basilica. Liberiana from the name of the Pope and commonly known as ad Nives, but also the Basilica of Santa Maria della Neve and, later, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, to indicate its predominance over all Roman churches dedicated to the Madonna.
Although modernist scholars did their best to destroy the tradition of dreams and miracles, the cult remained ingrained throughout Italy: many local celebrations in which cities and entire urban areas still participate. There are 152 churches, sanctuaries, small basilicas with the title of Madonna della Neve, they are in every region, among those where they are the most: Piedmont (31), Lombardy (19), Campania (17). She is the patroness of 64 Italian municipalities and 58 villages. In the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, on August 5, the miracle is celebrated by a rain of white rose petals falling from inside the dome during the liturgical service.
Madonna ad Nives is especially revered in Altavilla Silentina (Salerno): the statue is carried in procession from Carilla to the capital, overcoming 6 km on foot. In Bakugno (Rieti) a ritual act of “kneeling the bull” takes place, expressing the gratitude of the villagers to the figure of the Madonna for the abundance of the fruits of the earth. In Cancelli, a hamlet of Cosio di Arrosia (Empire), is the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Neve at an altitude of 1550 m above sea level: on August 5, believers from the province of Imperia and the nearby province of Cuneo flock here.
The inhabitants of Civitella Licinio (Benevento) are very attached to their recently restored little church, the Madonna della Neve. The holiday takes on a special solemnity every seven years, and 2016 is again a part of it. Women of the fifteenth century in Gallipoli (Lecce) went to the crypt of the ancient church of the Madonna ad Nives seu de Cassopo to bow to the icon of the Madonna della Neve and receive “responses” about the return of their relatives from the voyage. ; in the crypt next to the icon there was a small window overlooking the sea, by the way it swayed after their spell, they knew the fate of those who were on the boats. However, in Monte San Giacomo (Salerno) for centuries, on the night of August 4-5, there was a path leading to the church on the top of Monte Cervati (1899 m above sea level).
A long and sweet supernatural story in which Mary’s attentions and concerns are intertwined with Catholic lands: She guards and protects not only the faithful (whether they are good or not), but also the shepherds (whether they are good or not). Its beautiful churches, like all architecturally and artistically pre-conciliar ones, remind us of the indispensability not only of piety, but also of sound teaching, the very one that our children learned precisely in the abodes of God.
A teacher from the province of Cuneo told Camillo Langone that many students of Moroccan origin go to the school of Arabic and the study of the Koran on Saturdays and Sundays: “These are children who often receive state subsidies, these are children who always have Arabic names, and also for this reason . , despite the fact that they were born in Italy, they will feel like Arabs until the age of ninety, if they do not die young, blowing themselves up among those who, by paying taxes, forced them to study and eat often. If a tenth of them believe the Surah of the Conversion at the moment when the bottle of Barolo reaches its optimum age, the province of Cuneo will become as explosive as the Parisian suburbs (…) Catechism or death ”(PaperJuly 22, 2016).
Santa Maria Maggiore is here with its majesty not only to recall the dramatic period of the Church in the fourth century, but also to reassure the faithful in Christ, showing them the path to Salvation, which passes through the knowledge (teaching), Sacraments (Grace of God in the world), prayer (including the Holy Rosary), Cross (suffering), filial devotion to Her, triumphant of all heresy.
This article was published on July 27, 2016 at Roman Correspondence (HERE).