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

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).

It seems to me that, in all cases when indignity is offered to us, we should be silent; for it is our moment of profit.

Obedience is to give up one's own judgment but to do it with wise consultation.

He who has obtained the fear of the Lord has forsaken lying, having within himself an incorruptible judge – his own conscience.

Abba Or used to say this, 'Do not speak in your heart against your brother like this: 'I am a man of more sober and austere life than he is,' but put yourself in subjection to the grace of Christ, in the spirit of poverty and genuine charity, or you will be overcome by the spirit of vainglory and lose all you have gained. For it is written in the Scriptures: 'Let him who stands take heed lest he fall.' (I Corinthians 10:12) Let your salvation be founded in the Lord.'

Blessed is he who, though maligned and disparaged every day for the Lord's sake, constrains himself to be patient. He will join the chorus of the martyrs, and boldly converse with the angels.

I consider those fallen mourners more blessed than those who have not fallen and are not mourning over themselves; because as a result of their fall, they have risen by a sure resurrection.

The demons, murderers as they are, push us into sin. Or if they fail to do this, they get us to pass judgment on those who are sinning, so that they may defile us with the stain which we ourselves are condemning in another.

Most of us call ourselves sinners, and perhaps really think it; but it is indignity that tests the heart.

As too many sticks often choke a fire and put it out, while making a lot of smoke, so excessive sorrow often makes the soul smoky and dark, and dries the stream of tears.

A vigilant monk is a foe to fornication, but a sleepy one is its mate.

The man who pets a lion may tame it, but the man who coddles the body makes it ravenous.

It seems to me that, in all cases when indignity is offered to us, we should be silent; for it is our moment of profit.

It is not safe to swim in one's clothes, nor should a slave of passion touch theology.

Our good Redeemer, by speedily granting what is asked, draws to His love those who are grateful. But He keeps ungrateful souls praying a long time before Him, hungering and thirsting for what they want, since a badly trained dog rushes off as soon as it is given bread and leaves the giver behind.

Lying is wiped out by the tortures of superiors; but it is finally destroyed by an abundance of tears.

If you have promised Christ to go by the strait and narrow way, restrain your stomach, because by pleasing it and enlarging it, you break your contract. Attend and you will hear Him who says: 'Spacious and broad is the way of the belly that leads to the perdition of fornication, and many there are who go in by it; because narrow is the gate and strait is the way of fasting that leads to the life of purity, and few there be that find it.'

A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)