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

The greatest weapons of someone striving to lead a life of inward stillness are self-control, love, prayer, and spiritual reading.

Listlessness is an apathy of soul; and a soul becomes apathetic when sick with self-indulgence.

Spiritual freedom is release from the passions; without Christ’s mercy you cannot attain it.

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

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

Spiritual reading and prayer purify the intellect, while love and self-control purify the soul's passionate aspect.

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

If the soul is vigilant and withdraws from all distraction and abandons its own will, then the spirit of God invades it and it can conceive because it is free to do so.

Make the body serve the commandments, keeping it so far as possible free from sickness and sensual pleasure.

Self-control and strenuous effort curb desire; stillness and intense longing for God wither it.

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

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.'

Break the bonds of your friendship for the body and give it only what is absolutely necessary.

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).

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

Concern for one's soul means hardship and humility, for through these God forgives us all our sins.

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.

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)