Our Lady Ad Nives

The beautiful feast of Our Lady of the Snow is kept with particular solemnity at the Sta Maria Maggiore, the Basilica, which was founded by the Roman Patrician and his wife, who desired to know how they might best spend the fortune which, having no children, they wished to bequeath to Our Lady, and were told to raise a church in her honour, on the Esquiline, on the spot which they would find covered with snow. The festival is in the Calendar of the Universal Church, and the shower of jessamine leaves, which falls during vespers from the dome of the chapel, in which the picture of Our Lady, by St. Luke, is preserved, still keeps up in a touching and picturesque manner, the memory of the miracle.