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  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

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

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

Sometimes, when we are overcome by pride or impatience and are unwilling to amend our ill-conditioned and disordered way of life, we complain that what we need is solitude, as though in solitude, meeting with no provocation, we should find there the virtue of patience, making excuses for our slackness, and laying the blame of our agitation not upon our own lack of patience, but ascribing it to the faults of our brethren, whereas so long as we impute to others the causes of our own faults, we shall never be able to reach the goal of patience and of perfection.

The full and complete definition of repentance is that we never again allow in ourselves the sins of which we repent, or whereby our conscience is stung. The mark of satisfaction and forgiveness is when we have driven out from our hearts all desire for them.

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

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

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

Keeping the thought of God always present before you, this form of words for your devotions is ever to be put first: O God, make speed to save me; O Lord, make haste to help me. For this verse has, not undeservedly, been taken out of the whole of scripture for this purpose. It contains all the feelings that can come upon human nature; it is very rightly and properly suited for every situation and for every need that may come upon us. Indeed it contains a calling upon God against every danger, it has the humility of a good confession, the watchfulness of constant care and fear of God, it realizes the frailty of him who prays, exhibits confidence in an answer to the prayer, and trust in the Divine protection present and ever at hand. For he who ceases not to call upon his Protector is sure of His perpetual presence.

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

How great the evil of pride is, that it deserves to have as its adversary not an angel or other virtues contrary to it but rather God Himself! For it must be noted that it is never said of those who are caught up in the other vices that the Lord resists them, or that the Lord is set against the gluttonous, or fornicators, or the angry, or the avaricious; this is true of the proud alone. For those vices only turn back upon wrongdoers or seem to be committed against those who have a part in them -- that is, against other human beings. This one, however, of its very nature touches God, and therefore it is specially worthy of having God opposed to it.

Self-love -- that is, friendship for the body -- is the source of evil in the soul.

Just as a moth devours clothing and a worm devours wood, so dejection devours a man’s soul.

A worker takes the trouble to get hold of the instruments that he requires. He does so not simply to have them and not use them. Nor is there any profit for him in merely possessing the instruments. What he wants is, with their help, to produce the crafted objective for which these are the efficient means. In the same way, fasting, vigils, scriptural meditation, nakedness and total deprivation do not constitute perfection but are the means to perfection. They are not in themselves the end point of a discipline, but an end is attained to through them.

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

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

All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.

Blessed stillness gives birth to blessed children: self-control, love and pure prayer.

The enemy is within ourselves. An invisible war is taking place within us. If interior evil is defeated, then the external, weaker, foe will surrender.

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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)