It was a lifetime ago that I spent my summer in Rome with other seminarians from the United States. We took classes in the morning and then visited countless churches and basilicas throughout the Eternal City.

One basilica stands out in my recollection on this fifth day of August: Saint Mary Major. It is on this day that the Church celebrates the dedication of this papal basilica. Tradition says that Pope Liberius had a dream to build a church where the snow fell on the ground in the middle of a Roman August in 358. It was on the Esquiline Hill that the people of God built the oldest Church in the West honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of God.

The Basilica of Saint Mary Major caught international attention a few months ago as Pope Francis was buried within its walls out of his affection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This past Sunday, a friend and I were enthusing on the liturgical calendar and he what a basilica in Rome had to do with us as Catholics in the United States. I want to offer a response by first addressing an idea on ecclesiology – the study of the Church – then offer a thought on the Virgin Mary as Mother of God.

Ecclesiology is the idea that the Eucharist is being celebrated by a many people, who moved by grace, gather into one place. It is in this one place where many different people are united. In this gathering, God is at work in their lives and it is the place where scripture is experienced in its fullness through its proclamation to the assembly. It is the place where Bread and Wine, fruits of creation, are offered for the world. At the same time, God’s people in this one place understand themselves to be in communion with such like communities throughout the world. Our identity is our communion with all the baptized. This place is made visible through churches like Saint Mary Major.

Saint Mary Major is the crowning achievement that celebrates Mary as Theotokos (Greek: Θεοτόκος). We believe that Jesus is fully divine and fully human. Therefore, as God, he has a Mother. Mary as Theotokos helps us to understand who Jesus is.

I remember falling in love with Saint Mary Major when I walked into it the first time many summers ago. I was moved by the icon of Salus Populi Romani (Our Lady Help of the Roman People), which was reportedly painted by St. Luke the Evangelist. I returned there a number of times that summer to pray in her chapel. Many popes in our contemporary history have gone to this basilica to pray before the same icon as the Virgin watches over the Roman people.

Even during the global pandemic we had her image before us as we prayed for the world.

Today’s celebration of Saint Mary Major reminds us that we belong to a big family of faith. We all gather in many places to celebrate Eucharist. With Mary as our guide to “Do whatever he tells you” we go out into the world, to serve it, to love it, and to bring many to Christ through the witness of our authentic lives.