In the middle of the fourth century AD, a Roman patrician named John, together with his wife, made a vow to donate all their possessions to the Blessed Virgin. As they tried to decide how their worldly goods might best be disposed, they prayed for guidance, and on an August night their answer arrived by way of a dream and a meteorological miracle.
Appearing in their dreams, the Virgin Mary told the wealthy couple that she wanted them to build a church in her honor on Rome’s Esquiline Hill. She assured them that she would show them the right spot by means of a snowfall, despite Rome’s steamy summer weather. And, in keeping with her promise, on the night between 4 and 5 August, snow fell on the summit of the Esquiline Hill, while the Virgin Mary made another nocturnal visit, this time to Pope Liberius, alerting him to the mission with which she had charged the couple.
The next morning John and his wife appeared on the site of the miraculous snowfall and Pope Liberius arrived shortly thereafter. The pope ordered that the snow-covered ground be marked off and that construction begin immediately on the new church, which came to be known as Santa Maria Maggiore, and earned the status of being one of Rome’s four most important religious sites.
Though the story is probably just a legend (its origins seem to date several centuries after Santa Maria Maggiore was constructed), the miracle is celebrated each year on the 5th of August. A high mass is held and during the “Gloria,” white flower petals are showered from the ceiling of the basilica, re-enacting the miraculous snowfall.
Because the basilica is so large and the flower petals that waft out of the ceiling are so small, the event is notoriously difficult to photograph. But a careful examination of the photo posted above will reveal blurry white streaks, which are, in fact, flower petals falling to the ground.
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