Lenten Station Church
Wednesday of the First Week in Lent
St. Mary Major
(Santa Maria Maggiore)

The Basilica of St Mary Major is the largest, and perhaps oldest church dedicated to the Blessed Mother in the western world. It is also known as “Our Lady of the Snows” because as legend has it, the Blessed Mother appeared to a Roman couple in 352 AD and asked to have a church built in her honor on the Esquiline Hill, in Rome. To confirm this, the outline of the church appeared drawn in snow – in the middle of August! While this legend cannot be confirmed, we know that the church was originally constructed by Pope Liberius and was called the Liberian Basilica. It has been rebuilt and expanded several times, especially after the Council of Ephesus in 431, when Mary was officially given the title “Mother of God.” The original architecture of St Mary Major was classical and traditionally Roman perhaps to convey the idea that it represented old imperial Rome as well as its Christian future. Even though St Mary Major is immense in its area, it was built to plan. The design of the basilica was a typical one during this time in Rome: "a tall and wide nave; an aisle on either side; and a semicircular apse at the end of the nave." The key aspect that made St Mary Major such a significant cornerstone in church building during the early 5th century were the beautiful mosaics found on the triumphal arch and nave. The basilica was restored, redecorated and extended by various popes, including Eugene III (1145–1153), Nicholas IV (1288–92), Clement X (1670–76), and Benedict XIV (1740–58), who in the 1740s commissioned Ferdinando Fuga to build the present façade and to modify the interior. The interior of the St Mary Major underwent a broad renovation encompassing all of its altars between the years 1575 and 1630. St Mary Major Exterior Views St Mary Major Interior Views (Last Photo - Reliquary of the Holy Crib; said to contain fragments from the Nativity) Under the high altar of the basilica is the Crypt of the Nativity said to contain wood from the Holy Crib of the nativity of Jesus Christ. Here is the burial place of Jerome, the 4th-century Doctor of the Church who translated the Bible into the Latin language (the Vulgate). Fragments of the sculpture of the Nativity believed to be by 13th-century Arnolfo di Cambio were transferred to beneath the altar of the large Sistine Chapel off the right transept of the church. This chapel of the Blessed Sacrament is named after Pope Sixtus V and is not to be confused with the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, named after Pope Sixtus IV. The architect Domenico Fontana designed the chapel, which contains the tombs of Sixtus V himself and of his early patron Pope Pius V. The main altar in the chapel has four gilded bronze angels by Sebastiano Torregiani, holding up the ciborium, which is a model of the chapel itself. St Mary Major will be visited 2 more times during the Lenten Calendar - The Wednesday of Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Reference: 'Santa Maria Maggiore' on WikiPedia.com All Photographs are from Commons.WikiMedia.org St Mary Major 130 (1949) Art Treasures - Basilica St Mary Major 919 (1993) Jubilee Popes 1550-1725 - Pope Clement X 1100 (1999) Holy Year 2000 Great Jubilee - Basilica of St Mary Major 1139 (2000) Rome Obelisks:St Mary Major C41 (1959) Pope Pius V - 5th Centenary of Birth 1258-1259 (2004) Pope Sixtus V - 5th Century of Birth 1771 (2021) Domenico Fontana - Architect