Tag Archives: relics

St. Mary Major and the Miracle of the Snow

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The mosaics found in Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major) are among the oldest representations of the Virgin Mary. One scholar writes that “… the iconographic depiction of the Virgin Mary was chosen at least in part to celebrate the affirmation of Mary as Theotokos (bearer of God) by the third ecumenical Council of Ephesus in AD 431.”
Under the high altar of the basilica is the Crypt of the Nativity or Bethlehem Crypt, with a crystal reliquary said to contain wood from the Holy Crib (manger) of the nativity of Jesus in Bethlehem. In the crypt is also the burial place of St. Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin in the 4th century.

Who doesn’t need a miracle right about now? Although the miracle of St. Mary Major and the snow occurred in Rome during early August, I don’t think we need to wait until August to appreciate it.

According to the story, a rich Roman and his wife wanted to leave their estate to the Church in order to build a new church but they were uncertain where it should be built. They were promised in a dream that a miracle would show them the place to have the church built. A few days later, on August 5 in the mid-late 4th century, a miraculous snowfall occurred atop one of the hills of Rome. The couple understood this to be the miracle they had been told to expect. (Other versions of the story say that the Pope had chosen the site for a new church but his decision met with resistance; he marked the area to be excavated for the church foundations and had the dream promising a miracle to vindicate his choice of location. The next day the snow fell exactly–and only!–within the area he had marked for excavation.)

The legend is still commemorated by dropping white rose petals from the dome of the church during the celebration of the Mass on August 5th, similar to the red roses that are dropped from the dome of the Pantheon at Pentecost.

The mosaics in the church are among the most stunning examples of early Christian art and iconography. They illustrate events in the life of the Mother of God and of Christ and events from the Old Testament that are understood to be allusions or anticipations (types) of the events in the life of Christ and His mother.

The church is known as St. Mary Major because it is the most important of all the churches in Rome dedicated to the Mother of God; it is also sometimes called Saint Mary of the Crib (Sancta Maria ad Praesepe), a name it was given because of the relic of the crib or manger of the Nativity of Christ: four boards of sycamore wood believed to have been brought to the church, in AD 640–649. The Pope traditionally celebrates the Mass three times on Christmas Day; one of these celebrations is held at St. Mary Major because of the relic there.

Witnesses of the Resurrection

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Relics of the martyrs (lit. “witnesses”) whose lives and deaths testify to the power of Christ’s Resurrection, even in the midst of affliction and death. “You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.” (Psalm 66:12)

In ancient Greece, a martyr was a witness who testified in court. When Christians were arrested and asked to testify in court about their religious beliefs, they were therefore called “martyrs.” But that testimony would usually result in their execution for refusing to practice one of the legitimate religions of the Greco-Roman world; the Church has continued to call those who were executed for their testimony martyrs; their faith, even as they were tortured and killed, was a testimony to the power of Christ’s Resurrection.

After the martyrs were executed, other members of the Church would come collect the corpses or fragments of their tortured bodies for burial. They would gather at the tombs and burial places of the martyrs to celebrate the Eucharist. The bodies were treated with great care and devotion because they had been washed with the waters of baptism, anointed with holy oil, had tasted Holy Communion, and were simply one aspect of the deceased’s existence: a person is made of a body and soul together. Often, portions of the bodies–called “relics,” from the Latin for “remains”–would be placed in new altars, as described in the New Testament, “When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony.” (Rev. 6:9)

One of the earliest sources that describes the power of relics is found in 2 Kings 13:20–21:

20 Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. 21 Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

Another often cited passage is Acts 19:11–12, which says that Paul’s handkerchiefs were imbued with healing power by God.

Relics are typically divided into three categories:

First-Class Relics: items directly associated with the events of Christ’s life (manger, cross, etc.) or the physical remains of a saint (a bone, a hair, skull, a limb, etc.). Traditionally, a martyr’s relics are often more prized than the relics of other saints. Parts of the saint that were significant to that saint’s life are more prized relics.

Second-Class Relics: items that the saint owned or frequently used, for example, a crucifix, rosary, book, etc. Again, an item more important in the saint’s life is thus a more important relic. Sometimes a second-class relic is a part of an item that the saint wore (a shirt, a glove, etc.).

Third-Class Relics: any object that has been in contact with a first- or second-class relic. Pilgrims would often bring home these Third-class relics as a remembrance of a pilgrimage to a shrine.

For a post about the blood relic of St. Januarius (San Gennaro), first published in 2015, click here.

St. Agnes in Navona

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The shrine and relic (skull) of St. Agnes in the church of St. Agnes on the Piazza Navona.

The church of St. Agnes “in Agone” is a stunning 17th-century church in Rome, Italy. It faces onto the Piazza Navona, one of the main urban spaces in the historic center of the city and the site where the early Christian Saint Agnes was martyred in AD 304 at the ancient Stadium of Domitian. Construction of the modern church began in 1652 at the instigation of Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili (currently rented out to serve as the embassy of Brazil) is next door to this church. The church was to be effectively a family chapel annexed to their residence (for example, an opening was formed in the drum of the dome so the family could participate in the religious services from their palace).

The name of this church–St. Agnes in agone— is unrelated to the ‘agony’ of the martyr: “in agone” was the ancient name of Piazza Navona (“piazza in agone”), and meant instead, in Greek, ‘on the site of the competitions’, because Piazza Navona was built on the site of an ancient Roman stadium which was used for footraces. From ‘in agone’, the popular use and pronunciation changed the name into ‘Navona’, but other roads in the area kept the original name.

Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers is situated in front of the church. It is often said that Bernini sculpted the figure of the “Nile” covering his eyes. (The four rivers are those which were thought to flow out of Paradise–the Garden of Eden–to bring fresh water to the rest of the world.)

The other church of St. Agnes in Rome — the Church of St. Agnes outside the Walls (Sant’Agnese fuori le mura)–is built outside the ancient walls of Rome atop the Catacombs of Saint Agnes, where the saint was originally buried, and which may still be visited from the church. Most of her relics are still there; only her head is at the Piazza Navona church. (I was recently given The Geometry of Love, a wonderful book by Margaret Visser about this church “outside the walls.” I highly recommend it!)

A view of the high altar in the church of St. Agnes on the Piazza Navona in Rome.