Children and peasants are generally more likely to report apparitions than wealthy people. In a few cases, however, wealthy people have encountered the Virgin Mary, particularly those who were generous and seeking guidance as to how to better use their resources for God.

This type of apparition occurred during the fourth century when a wealthy, childless couple in Rome was struggling over how to best use their fortune. They had often prayed to the Virgin Mary for guidance, and on August 4, A.D. 352, she finally appeared to them in response to their multiple requests.

On that day, she instructed them to begin construction on a church located on one of Rome's hills. Just to be clear about exactly which hill and exactly how large she intended the church to be, she promised to send snow to cover the earth on the exact spot where the church was to be built.

August is the hottest time of the year in Rome, so the idea of snow was baffling to this couple. But just as they were receiving the message about the church they were to build, Pope Liberius received a parallel message.

The next morning, Pope Liberius and the wealthy couple were astonished to discover that a portion of Esquiline Hill was blanketed in snow. They had just enough time to measure the space where the church was to be built before the snow melted. Within eight years, the world's largest church devoted to the Virgin Mary, Saint Mary Major, was constructed. This church still stands to this day.

One of the themes of this apparition — that the Virgin Mary is able to cause a reversal of weather patterns, such as snow in the middle of August — is often repeated in the apparitions. Sometimes the miracle is poetically reversed and instead of summer snows, roses bloom in the dead of winter.