Roy H. Schoeman's Own Conversion (II)

I continued in this undiscriminating, eclectic path for exactly one year, until one year to the day after the experience on the beach, I received the second great extraordinary grace of my life. I frankly admit that, in all external aspects, what took place was a dream. Yet when I went to sleep I knew little about, and had no special sympathy for Christianity or any of its aspects; when I awoke I was hopelessly in love with the Blessed Virgin Mary and wanted nothing more than to become as totally Christian as I could. In the "dream," I was taken to a room and granted an audience with the most beautiful young woman I could have ever imagined; without it being spoken, I knew that it was the Blessed Virgin Mary. She agreed to answer any questions I might ask her; I clearly remember standing there, weighing a number of possible questions in my mind, and asking her four or five of them. She answered them, then spoke to me for several more minutes, and then the audience was ended. My experience of the event, and my memory of it, are as of something which took place in full wakefulness. I remember all the details, including of course the questions and the answers, but all pales beside by far the greatest aspect of the experience: the ecstasy of simply being in her presence, in the purity and intensity of her love.