Around 350 A.D., a childless Roman couple wanted their wealth to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary after their deaths. According to legend, Mary appeared to the husband in a dream, requesting that a church be built on a site where snow would fall in midsummer. When the couple told Pope Liberius, he claimed to have had a similar dream. On Aug. 5, as Rome was engulfed in a heat wave, snow miraculously fell on the Esquiline Hill. On that spot a church was built and called the Liberian Basilica. While there is no historical evidence to support the legend – no mention of the story can be found until several hundred years after the church’s completion – the Miracle of the Snows is remembered each year in a liturgy that features white flower petals falling from the ceiling.