• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

Repentance raises the fallen, mourning knocks at the gate of Heaven, and holy humility opens it.

Let no one on seeing or hearing something supernatural in the monastic way of life fall into unbelief out of ignorance; for where the supernatural God dwells, much that is supernatural happens.

Love and humility form a holy pair; what the first builds, the second binds, thus preventing the building from falling asunder.

Be concentrated without self-display, withdrawn into your heart. For the demons fear concentration as thieves fear dogs.

Painstaking repentance, mourning cleansed of all impurity, and holy humility in beginners, are as different and distinct from each other as yeast and flour from bread. By open repentance the soul is broken and refined; it is brought to a certain unity, I will even say a commingling with God, by means of the water of genuine mourning. Then, kindled by the fire of the Lord, blessed humility becomes bread and is made firm without the leaven of pride. Therefore, when this holy three-fold cord or, rather, heavenly rainbow, unites into one power and activity, it acquires its own effects and properties. And whatever you name as an indication of one of them, is a token also of another. The first and paramount property of this excellent and admirable trinity is the acceptance of indignity with the greatest pleasure, when the soul receives it with outstretched hands and welcomes it as something that relieves and cauterizes diseases of the soul and great sins. The second property is the loss of all bad temper, and humility as its subsiding. The third and highest degree is a true distrust of one’s good qualities and a constant desire to learn.

He who has put a stop to anger has also destroyed remembrance of wrongs; because childbirth continues only while the father is alive.

A man who has embraced poverty offers up prayer that is pure, while a man who loves possessions prays to material images.

Stint your stomach and you will certainly lock your mouth, because the tongue is strengthened by an abundance of food. Struggle with all your might against the stomach and restrain it with all sobriety. If you labor a little, the Lord will also soon work with you.

If you feel sweetness or compunction at some word of your prayer, dwell on it; for then our guardian angel is praying with us.

Control your appetites before they control you.

Do not regard the feelings of a person who speaks to you about his neighbor disparagingly, but rather say to him: 'Stop, brother! I fall into graver sins every day, so how can I criticize him?' In this way you will achieve two things: you will heal yourself and your neighbor with one plaster. This is one of the shortest ways to the forgiveness of sins; I mean, not to judge. 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,' (Luke 6:37).

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

Do not be surprised that you fall every day, do not give up, but stand your ground courageously. And assuredly, the angel who guards you will honor your patience. While a wound is still fresh and warm, it is easy to heal; but old, neglected and festering ones are hard to cure, and require for their care much treatment, cutting, plastering and cauterization. Many from long neglect become incurable, but with God all things are possible.

Most of us call ourselves sinners, and perhaps really think it; but it is indignity that tests the heart.

The angels know how to speak about love, and even they can only do this according to the degree of their enlightenment.

The beginning of the mortification both of the soul’s desire and of the bodily members is much hard work. The middle is sometimes laborious and sometimes not laborious. But the end is insensibility and insusceptibility to toil and pain. Only when he sees himself doing his own will does this blessed living corpse feel sorry and sick at heart; and he fears the responsibility of using his own judgment.

He who has obtained the fear of the Lord has forsaken lying, having within himself an incorruptible judge – his own conscience.

Meekness is a rock overlooking the sea of anger, which breaks all the waves that dash against it, yet remains completely unmoved.

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Parish

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

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