A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.

The garment of your soul must shine with the whiteness of simplicity.

The fruit of prayer consists in illumination of mind and compunction of heart, in the quickening of the soul with the life of the Spirit.

A man’s soul takes on qualities according to its activity.

He who has not received within himself the kingdom of God cannot recognize the Antichrist. He is absolutely sure to become in a way incomprehensible to himself his follower.

A sorrowless earthly life is a true sign that the Lord has turned his face from a man, and that he is displeasing to God, even though outwardly he may seem reverent and virtuous.

The reason that fasting has an effect on the spirits of evil rests in its powerful effect on our own spirit. A body subdued by fasting brings the human spirit freedom, strength, sobriety, purity, and keen discernment.

Stand at prayer before the invisible God as if you saw Him, and with the conviction that He sees you and is looking at you attentively.

It is natural for the poor man to beg, and it is natural for man made poor by the fall into sin to pray.

All men, led by the light of fallen nature alienated from guidance of God's light, will be enticed into submission to the seducer (Antichrist).

Denial of the world precedes following Christ. The second has no place in the soul, if the first is not accomplished beforehand.

The power given by the Lord to His seventy disciples is given to all Christians (Mk. 16:17). Use it, Christian! With the name of Jesus cut off their heads, that is the first appearances of sin in our thoughts, fancies and feelings. Destroy within you the devil's rule over you; destroy all his influence over you; acquire spiritual freedom. The foundation for your struggle is the grace of holy baptism; your weapon is prayer in the name of Jesus.

Your faith in the holy sacrament of confession will save you; the grace of God present in the sacrament of confession will heal you.

In the evening, on going to sleep (an image of death for the life of that day); examine your actions during the day that has passed. Such an examination is not difficult for one who leads an attentive life, because attention destroys that forgetfulness which is so characteristic of a distracted person. And thus, recalling all your sins in deed, word, thought and feeling, offer repentance over them to God with the disposition and heartfelt promise of correction.

As the earth, long awaiting moistening and at last receiving it in abundance, suddenly is covered by tender and bright greenery, so also the heart, exhausted by dryness, and afterwards revived by tears, emits from itself a multitude of spiritual thoughts and feelings, adorned by the common flower of humility. The labor of weeping, being inseparable from the labor of prayer, requires the same conditions for success as prayer requires. Prayer needs patient, constant dwelling in itself; weeping requires the same. Prayer needs wearying of the body, and brings about exhaustion of the body; this exhaustion produces weeping, which must be born in the troubling and wearying of the body.

What air is for the life of the body, the Holy Spirit is for the life of the soul. By means of prayer, the soul breathes this holy, mysterious air.

The soul of prayer is attentiveness. As the body without a soul is dead, so prayer without attentiveness is dead.

Unless a man keeps the commandments of God, he cannot progress, even in a single virtue.

When you receive from Heaven the gift of patience, be attentive and vigilant over yourself, so as to hold and keep within yourself the grace of God, lest sin should creep unnoticed into your soul or body and drive away this grace.

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Archangel Michael Orthodox Church
5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)