A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.
Self-control and strenuous effort curb desire; stillness and intense longing for God wither it.
Love and self-control purify the soul.
As for uprooting your passions, begin with self-reproach and with awareness of your own weaknesses; and consider yourself to be deserving of afflictions.
He who smells the smell of one’s own foul odor doesn’t smell the foul odor of anyone else.
How much joy, how much peace of soul would a man not have wherever he went… if he was one who habitually accused himself.
The martyrs will show their torments, the ascetics their good works; but what will I have to show but my apathy and my incessant indulgence?
Self-condemnation always brings peace and rest to the heart.
Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.
One who is capable of seeing himself is better than one who has been made worthy to see angels.
There is yet another reason that may cause our prayer to go unanswered: namely, that though we pray we yet continue in sin.
He alone knows himself in the best way who thinks of himself as being nothing.
Increasing self-criticism is the sign of increasing humility. Indeed, there is no clearer sign.
A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.
Do not regard the feelings of a person who speaks to you about his neighbor disparagingly, but rather say to him: ‘Stop, brother! I fall into graver sins every day, so how can I criticize him?’ In this way you will achieve two things: you will heal yourself and your neighbor with one plaster. This is one of the shortest ways to the forgiveness of sins; I mean, not to judge. ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,’ (Luke 6:37).
Humble yourself, reproach yourself, consider yourself the very last and the very worst of all, condemn no one – and you will receive God’s mercy.
Self-accusation before God is something that is very necessary for us; and humility of heart is extremely advantageous in our lives, above all at the time of prayer. For prayer requires great attention and needs a proper awareness, otherwise it will turn out to be unacceptable and rejected, and `it will be turned back empty’ to our bosom.
Should you accuse and condemn yourself before God for the sins on your conscience, you will be justified for doing so.
One must train oneself in self-reproach, that is, always accuse oneself & not others in one’s mind, reproach oneself and not others, and with a severe distrust of oneself accuse oneself of the failings which are covered up by our self-love, accuse ourself of our inclinations to sin. He who has self-reproach has peace, writes Abba Dorotheos, & will never be disturbed. If to such a one there should occur an illness, a wrong, a vexation, or some similar misfortune, he ascribes everything to his own sins & thanks God. If such a one is punished or reprimanded by the superior, he accepts all this as good & accepts every severe word against himself without murmuring or talking back, as the judgment of God.
He who believes in Christ is not judged, for he judges himself, and sets his feet aright to follow the light that goes before him. As a man in deep darkness adapts his step to the candle in his hand, so also he who believes in Christ; that is, he who is set to follow after Christ as the light in the darkness of life.
The more a man struggles to do good, the more fear grows in him, until it shows him his slightest faults, those which he thought of as nothing while he was still in the darkness of ignorance.