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

Sometimes afflictions are sent to a person even though he is innocent, so that he would suffer for others, as did Christ. The Savior Himself first suffered for people. His Apostles also suffered for the Church and for people. Perfect love means suffering for your neighbor.

A wise man is one who pays attention to himself and is quick to separate himself from all defilement.

We are sons of God or of Satan according to whether we conform to goodness or to evil.

Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (Genesis 41:57, 46:6).

The soul's health consists in dispassion and spiritual knowledge; no slave to sensual pleasure can attain it.

When you pray fervently, watch, for there will be temptations. This happens to everyone.

If you are not willing to repent through freely choosing to suffer, unsought sufferings will providentially be imposed on you.

It is impossible to look to heaven with one eye and to the earth with another. Likewise, it is impossible for our soul to cling at once to earthly and to heavenly things. We must select one or the other and cling to it...

A holy man told us one day, that the source of all heresies and schisms in the church was, loving God too little, and ourselves too much.

If you lay down rules for yourself, do not disobey yourself; for he who cheats himself is self-deluded.

The person who is unaffected by the things of this world loves stillness; and he who loves no human thing loves all men.

The Holy Eucharist is the first, most important, and greatest miracle of Christ. All the other Gospel miracles are secondary. How could we not call the greatest miracle the fact that simple bread and wine were once transformed by the Lord into His very Body and His very Blood, and then have continued to be transformed for nearly two thousand years by the prayers of priests, who are but simple human beings? And what is more, this mystery has continued to effect a miraculous change in those people who communicate of the Divine Mysteries with faith and humility.

A true monk does no reproach and does not praise.

Just as desire and rage multiply our sins, so self-control and humility erase them.

Patient endurance is the soul's struggle for virtue; where there is struggle for virtue, self-indulgence is banished.

Pay no attention to praise and fear it; remember what one of the holy fathers says: 'If someone praises you, expect reproaches from him too.'

Control your stomach, sleep, anger, and tongue, and you will not 'dash your foot against a stone.'

If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions, you cannot reap God's mercy.

Filters
Search By Keyword
Filter By
See more See less
Topics (Love, Anger, Confession, etc.)
Parish

Mailing Address

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

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