Pray the whole novena with us, one day at a time: the snow that fell in high Roman summer, the traditional Consecration to Our Lady of the Snows, the day’s Scripture and the Way of the Day — on video and in a companion book.
Rome, the year 358. It is the height of summer — and the Esquiline Hill wakes up covered in snow.
Tradition holds that a noble childless couple, the patrician John and his wife, prayed for a sign: they wanted to know what to do with an inheritance they had no one to leave. At dawn on August 5th, Our Lady appeared in a dream to the couple — and, that same night, to Pope Liberius — asking for a church on the spot she herself would mark. Next morning the snow covered the hill. There was born the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, the largest church in the world dedicated to the Mother of God.
In Brazil this devotion took deep root. On August 5th, 1585, the city of Filipeia of Our Lady of the Snows — today João Pessoa — was founded in Paraíba. Our Lady of the Snows is patroness of the city and of the whole state, and in 2026 the Feast of the Snows reaches its 441st edition: one of the oldest and most living Marian celebrations in the country.
Each day has a contemplative video with the whole novena: the opening prayer, the Consecration to Our Lady of the Snows, the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be prayed in full, the Word of God for the day with a meditation, a moment of silence and the closing blessing — nothing abridged, so you can pray along from beginning to end.
On the first day you choose the grace you will ask for; across the nine days you renew and deepen the request; on the eve of the feast, you offer it. The companion book in PDF carries the complete novena, with a QR code for each day that leads straight to the video.
“O most excellent Virgin of the Snows, protect Brazil, which is yours from the blessed day of its discovery.”
Keeping your soul whiter than the purest snow, from the happy moment of your Immaculate Conception. This is the prayer Paraíba has prayed for generations before its patroness — and it is with it that each of the nine days of this novena opens. Here you find the full text and where it comes from: since there is no official English version, the English rendering is our own translation.
Not just a prayer to repeat: it is a nine-day journey with the Mother who pointed out the place.
The Consecration to Our Lady of the Snows — the same one prayed at the novena of the Cathedral in João Pessoa — with the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be in full, nothing cut. There is no official English version: the English text is our own translation of the traditional Portuguese prayer.
Each day opens with an episode: the patrician’s dream, the pope who went up to see for himself, the Council of Ephesus, the Salus Populi Romani icon, the arrival of the devotion in Brazil.
In its first pages the book sets out the research into the sources: what is traditional text, what is our own writing, what is our translation — and why there is no "official" novena.
A contemplative video each day and the novena book in PDF, with a QR code — made to be printed and prayed in a group.
“Novena to Our Lady of the Snows” — in Kindle and paperback editions to pray with in hand.
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