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

If you wish to be saved and 'to come unto the knowledge of the truth' (I Tim. 2:4), endeavor always to transcend sensible things, and through hope alone to cleave to God. Then you will find principalities and powers fighting against you (Eph. 6:12), deflecting you against your will and provoking you to sin. But if you prevail over them through prayer and maintain your hope, you will receive God's grace, and this will deliver you...

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

Deeper spiritual knowledge helps the hard hearted man: for unless he has fear, he refuses to accept the labor of repentance.

He who wants to cross the spiritual sea is long-suffering, humble, vigilant and self-controlled. If he impetuously embarks on it without these four virtues, he agitates his heart, but cannot cross.

Do not seek to find the cause of temptations or whence they come; only pray to suffer them with gratitude.

Obedience with abstinence gives men control over wild beasts.

If a man tries to overcome temptations without prayer and patient endurance, he will become more entangled in them instead of driving them away.

It is better to eat meat and drink wine and not to eat the flesh of one's brethren through slander.

Every tribulation reveals the state of our will, whether it inclines to the right or to the left. An unexpected tribulation is called temptation, because it subjects a man to a test of his secret dispositions.

Those who have sinned must not despair. Let that never be. For we are condemned not for the multitude of evils, but because we do not want to repent...

If a man tries to overcome temptations without prayer and patient endurance, he will become more entangled in them instead of driving them away.

The self-indulgent are distressed by criticism and hardship; those who love God by praise and luxury.

No one is as good and kind as the Lord is; but He does not forgive one who does not repent.

When tested by some trial you should try to find out not why or through whom it came, but only how to endure it gratefully, without distress or rancor.

The Lord commands all men to repent (Matt. 4:17), so that even the spiritual and those making progress should not neglect this injunction and fail to give attention to the smallest and most subtle errors.

If we want to do something but cannot, then before God, Who knows our hearts, it is as if we have done it. This is true whether the intended action is good or bad.

Do not seek the perfection of the law in human virtues, for it is not found perfect in them. Its perfection is hidden in the Cross of Christ.

He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort which cancels his former sins, but through this effort he makes his peace with God.

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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)