The Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major

Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Feast Day

August 5

The Optional Memorial of the Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major commemorates the consecration of the principal Marian basilica of the West, the Liberian Basilica on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, the only one of the four major papal basilicas in the city dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The basilica's foundation is traditionally connected with Pope Liberius (352-366), who is said to have built an earlier church on the site, and a popular legend, recorded from the medieval period, holds that on the night of August 4-5, 358, the Virgin appeared in a vision to Pope Liberius and to the Roman patrician John, instructing them to build a church on the spot where snow would fall the next morning, in the height of the Roman summer; the snow fell on the Esquiline. From this legend comes the popular Roman name Santa Maria della Neve, and the annual commemoration on August 5, when white rose petals are dropped from the basilica ceiling during the morning Mass.

The historically attested foundation of the present basilica is by Pope Sixtus III, who consecrated it shortly after the Council of Ephesus (431) had defined the divine motherhood of Mary, with the title Theotokos. The basilica's celebrated fifth-century mosaics in the nave and the triumphal arch, surviving largely intact, are the oldest substantial Marian iconographic program in the world and depict scenes from the Old Testament and the infancy of Christ in explicit reference to Mary's role at Ephesus. The basilica also houses the icon Salus Populi Romani (Protectress of the Roman People), a Byzantine image of the Virgin attributed by tradition to Saint Luke and venerated by Pope Francis at the beginning and end of every apostolic journey.

The Dedication originally was a local Roman feast and was extended to the universal Church in the late thirteenth century. The post-Vatican II Calendar restores it as an Optional Memorial on August 5.