Today we celebrate the feast of the dedication of St. Mary Major in Rome. Wow. Where am I going to find the story of a CHURCH? There's a little in Butler's Lives. One good thing about the reform of the calendar (a thing I usually lament) is that the original name of the feast, in this case "Our Lady of the Snows", has been changed to a more descriptive and easier to defend one, "Dedication of St. Mary Church." The reason that is good is because the story of the apparition of our Lady to a layman named John (that part may have been true), asking him to build a church where she would indicate by a very narrow snowstorm in the middle of summer right on the spot on Esquline Hill, "is now everywhere recognized as a myth" - Butler's Lives. I'm not sure why this must be a myth: after all, miraculous roses have bloomed in the snow as signs of her favor -- in universally approved apparitions or associated with certain saints. But I just present the facts.
As to why it is called "St. Mary Major," in Italian "Santa Maria Maggiore" or "Great St. Mary's," that's easy. It is the oldest and most dignified of all the churches dedicated to Mary in that "city of churches," Rome. I wonder if it's also the largest. I'm sure it's beautiful. I wish all churches dedicated to Mary were as beautiful. Heck, I wish all Catholic churches were beautiful! I want graceful, if not soaring, architecture; I want a cross on top; I want stone with suitable carvings; I want representative stained glass; I want statues; I want a tabernacle in a prominent place of honor. I want rich vestments and liturgical vessels of precious metals. And to those who argue that it's all too costly I respond, "And those 'functional' churches cost HOW much?" :)
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