August 5, 2023, Our Lady of Snow, Holy Rosary (Joyful Mysteries) | Prayer for the WYD in Lisbon

We celebrate today the memorial day of Our Lady of Snow (la Virgen Blanca, in Spanish), a feast related to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one of the illustrious churches in Rome.

This feast commemorates the miracle of the snowfall that occurred during the night of August 4-5 in the year 358 on the site where the basilica now stands. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream to two faithful Roman Christians, the patrician John and his wife, as well as to Pope Liberius (352-366), asking that a church be built in her honor on the site where snow would fall on the night of August 4-5.

The basilica was completed about a century later by Pope Sixtus III (432-440), after the Council of Ephesus in 431 during which Mary was declared to be the Mother of God.

Congratulations to all the women named Blanca o Maria Blanca (white, in Spanish).

Also today we join in our prayer Pope Francis and all the participants in WYD in Fatima. They all faithfully prayed the Joyful Mysteries.