“However, as he looked up into the face of the statue of Mary, he received the great gift of faith. So total, so complete was it, that he never had to go through the process of juxtaposition and say, “how will I answer this or that difficulty?”
Time and again I have heard similar stories, even from my own wife; prayers before an Icon of Panagia, at an Akathist during Great Lent, always the same and always a miracle.
You wrote:
“Time and again I have heard similar stories, even from my own wife; prayers before an Icon of Panagia, at an Akathist during Great Lent, always the same and always a miracle.”
My favorite of this sort is:
http://members.chello.nl/~l.de.bondt/ratisbonneEng.htm
“At the moment when the Blessed Virgin made a sign with her hand, the veil fell from my eyes; not one veil only, but all the veils that were wrapped around me disappeared, just as snow melts beneath the rays of the sun.”
“It is well known that I never opened a religious book and had never read a page of the Bible, and that the dogma of original sin, which it is either denied or forgotten by modern Jews, had never for a single moment occupied my thoughts—indeed, I doubt I had ever heard its name. How did I arrive at a knowledge of it? I know not. All I know is that when I entered that church I was profoundly ignorant of everything, and that when I came out I saw everything clearly and distinctly.”