Sunday after August 5

Panna Maria Sněžná, Dolní Dvořiště, Český Krumlov, South Bohemia, Czech Republic

The story goes that around 1500, Mary appeared to some shepherds here atop a rock, which then split. The gap kept growing; it is said that the world will end when a hay wagon can pass through. In the 1600s, Clarissan nuns built the church of St. Mary of the Snow over the Holy Stone. A nearby chapel houses a healing spring. In 1949 Communist authorities closed the church and repurposed it as a collective farm granary, then as a military warehouse. Its Baroque fittings were looted, its stucco decorations used for target practice, its convent ruined and demolished. Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, an international effort by German, Austrian, and Czech believers restored the church and chapel and renovated the statue, which had been moved to another church for safekeeping. The annual pilgrimage on the Sunday after August 5, feast of Our Lady of the Snows, which resumed in 1991, features mass in Czech and German, followed by a picnic.  

Sources:

bulletTown site, "Svatý Kámen: Z historie obce a okolí," Dolní Dvořiště, www.dolnidvoriste.cz/svaty-kamen/d-1022/p1=60
bulletParish site, "Svatý Kámen," Úvodní stránka, farnostkaplice.cz/SK.html
bullet"Svatý Kámen," www.kampocesku.cz (picture)

Also commemorated this date:

bulletOur Lady of Snows, Rachol, South Goa, Goa, India (or 1st Sun.)
bulletMadonna della Neve, Carcoforo, Vercelli, Piedmont, Italy (Madonna of the Snow)
 

Where We Walked ~~~ Mary Ann Daly