Procession from Santa Croce in Gerusalemme to Santa Maria Maggiore
7,200 pilgrims from 44 different countries are participating in the St. Pius X Fraternity’s pilgrimage to Rome Aug. 19-21 during this Holy Year. Among them are 680 priests, religious men and women. A staging point has been set up near Rome and is hosting more than 700 pilgrims.
The procession on Tuesday, August 20, led pilgrims from Santa Croce in Gerusalemme to Santa Maria Maggiore, where they passed through the Holy Door. Leading the procession was the processional cross, carried by His Excellency Archbishop Fellay, who presided over the day’s procession, at the end of which jubilee prayers were recited.
History of Santa Maria Maggiore
The primacy it assumed from the beginning, and maintained among the churches of the City and the world dedicated to Mary, was acquired by the solemn and prodigious circumstances of its origins:
During the pontificate of Pope Liberius, the Roman patrician John and his wife, of equal nobility, having no children to whom they could leave their possessions, dedicated their inheritance to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, imploring her with fervent and assiduous prayers to give a sign in some way to the pious work for which she preferred that money to be employed. The Blessed Virgin Mary, listening benignly to these prayers and desires that flowed from the heart, responded with a miracle.
During the none of August (Aug. 5), the time of year when Rome usually experiences maximum heat, snow covered much of the Esquiline Hill at night. That same night, the Mother of God separately advised John and his wife in a dream to build a church on the place they saw covered with snow, which would be consecrated under the name of the Virgin Mary: thus she wished to be named their heir. John informed Pope Liberius of this, who claimed to have had the same vision.
Solemnly accompanied by the priests and people, he arrived on the snowy hill and located the site of the church, which was built at the expense of John and his wife. Sixtus III later restored it.
It was initially called by various names: Basilica of Liberius, St. Mary of the Cradle. But as numerous churches were built in the city named after the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that the basilica, which surpassed others of the same name in dignity and splendor of its noble origin, would also be distinguished by the excellence of its title, it was named the Church of St. Mary Major. The solemn anniversary of its dedication is celebrated in memory of the miracle of the snow that fell on that day.
