Dedication of St. Mary Major

Today's optional memorial honors the dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, one of the four basilicas in the city of Rome and the first Roman church dedicated to Mary.  A beautiful legend has it that a Patrician named John had a dream in which Mary indicated she wanted a church dedicated to her on a hill in Rome that would be covered with snow...an anomaly in the hot Roman summer.  John told Pope Liberius about the dream, and the Pope answered that he too had had the same dream. They went to the snow-covered hill where the pope outlined the dimensions of the church in the snow. Hence, the title Our Lady of the Snow(s). A century later after the Council of Ephesus at which Mary was declared the "God-Bearer", Theotokos, the enlarged Church was dedicated, the event we celebrate today.
The presence of this magnificent basilica which contains a relic of the manger in which the infant Jesus was placed after his birth, is a reminder of Mary's presence among us, as our Mother, and the woman who represents the ideal disciple of Jesus, who willing takes up the cross daily, willingly "loses" his or her life for the sake of Jesus, and finds true life in Jesus. As Marists, this is a further reinforcement of our call to BE Mary, BE PRESE NT in acts of mercy, kindness, compassion and forgiveness and joyfully take us our cross with Jesus in order to find life and  to help others find it as well..
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