Virgen De Las Nieves, Bariloche, Argentina (Virgin of the Snows) March 2025

 

This morning I took the No 50 Bus to a Marian shrine I had seen on journey earlier in the week. I had thought it was a chapel and even hoped to take part in a Mass.

It turned out to be a small shrine built into the rock at the side of the road, a shrine to the Virgin of the snows. Bariloche is in the lake district of the Patagonia mountains that Argentina shares with Chile.  It’s summer and the lakes are surrounded by wonderful mountains for hiking but for most of the year it is a winter resort. As I prayed at the grotto, I imagined Our Lady must have appeared to a local person in this place as she did to Bernadette in the Pyrenees.  However, this veneration of Our Lady far older and the Miracle of the Snows took place on another continent and has nothing to do with winter!



 

On the night of August 4-5 in the year 358, a miracle took place in answer to a prayer.

A rich noble couple had been praying to the Blessed Virgin, asking her what to do with their wealth, they were childless, they desired to give their entire fortune to Our Lady.

 

That night in a dream, the Blessed Virgin appeared to them and told that she wanted a church to be built on the Esquiline hill in Rome, and that she would show them where the church was to be built by covering the area with snow. Our Lady also appeared that night in a dream to Pope Liberius, telling him of her desire that a church be built and instructing him to go to the same hill.

 

The next day they all arrived at the hill to find an exact area covered with snow, an extraordinary miracle in the hot, muggy Roman month of August. The area the snow covered was marked off and Pope Liberius ordered that construction begin immediately on a new church. This church was eventually to become St. Mary Major, the most important church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in the West.

 

I have been trying to think of the connection that would bring a Roman tradition to Argentina, and I think the answer lies in Buenos Aires. In the capitol it is almost impossible to find an Argentinian without an Italian surname due to the large-scale historical migration of Italians to Argentina, resulting in a significant portion of the Argentine population having Italian ancestry, estimated at around 60%, making Italian culture deeply ingrained in Argentine society.

 

At the grotto I prayed for you all, and for those who had prayed there before me, and for all who had their prayers answered.

 

Sarah

          


The view from the groto

 

 

 



view of Cathedral mountain from the grotto




The Church of the Virgin of the Snows in the Antarctic

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