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

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

It is an insult to the intelligence to be subject to what lacks intelligence and to concern itself with shameful desires.

Love and self-control purify the soul.

Struggle until death to fulfill the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.

Ascetic exertion, at the personal, family, and parish level, particularly of prayer and fasting, is the characteristic of Orthodoxy.

O monk, take thou the greatest possible care that thou sin not, lest thou disgrace God Who dwelleth in thee, and thou drive Him out of thy soul.

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

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

In Christianity truth is not a philosophical concept nor is it a theory, a teaching, or a system, but rather, it is the living theanthropic hypostasis - the historical Jesus Christ (John 14:6). Before Christ men could only conjecture about the Truth since they did not possess it. With Christ as the incarnate divine Logos the eternally complete divine Truth enters into the world. For this reason the Gospel says: 'Truth came by Jesus Christ' (John 1:17).

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

The Church is the personhood of the God-human Christ, a God-human organism and not a human organization. The Church is indivisible, as is the person of the God-human, as is the body of the God-human. For this reason it is a fundamental error to have the God-human organism of the Church divided into little national organizations. In the course of their procession down through history many local Churches have limited themselves to nationalism, to national methods and aspirations, ours being among them. The Church has adapted herself to the people when it should properly be just the reverse: the people adapting themselves to the Church. This mistake has many a time been made by our Church here. But we very well know that these were the 'tares' of our Church life, tares which the Lord will not uproot, leaving them rather to grow with the wheat until the time of harvest (Matth. 13, 29-30). We also well know (the Lord so taught us) that these tares have their origin in our primeval enemy and enemy of Christ: the devil (Matth. 13, 25-28). But we wield this knowledge in vain if it is not transformed into prayer, the prayer that in time to come Christ will safeguard us from becoming the sowers and cultivators of such tares ourselves.

He who guards his lips preserves his soul; but he who is bold with his lips dishonors himself.

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

Chastise your soul with the thought of death, and through remembrance of Jesus Christ concentrate your scattered intellect.

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

You were commanded to keep the body as a servant, not to be unnaturally enslaved to its pleasures.

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

'Grace always precedes temptations.' He knew that grace always precedes temptations as a forewarning preparation. As soon as you perceive grace, gird yourself and say: 'Here comes the call to battle! Beware, attend, O Clay, to where the wicked on will strike the battle. Many times it comes quickly, and many times after two or three days. In any event, it will come, and the earthworks must be firm. Confessions every evening, Obedience to the elder, humility and love towards all. By these means lighten the affliction.' Grace is divided into three stages: purifying, enlightening, and perfecting. So also are deeds: natural, supernatural, contranatural. According to these three stages on ascends and descends. The great gifts one receives are also three: contemplation, love, dispassion.

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Mailing Address

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

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