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Quotes

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

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.

As long as the flesh is in full health, let us observe abstinence at all times and in every place. When it has been tamed (which I do not suppose is possible this side of the grave), then let us hide our accomplishment.

Just as over-drinking is a matter of habit, so too from habit comes over-sleeping. Therefore we must struggle with the question of sleep, especially in the early days of obedience, because a long-standing habit is difficult to cure.

As a ray of sun, passing through a crack, lights everything in the house and shows up even the finest dust, so the fear of the Lord, entering a man's heart, reveals to him all his sins.

Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.

I wish I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of perfection does not consist in many devices, nor in much cogitation, but in denying themselves completely and yielding themselves to suffer everything for the love of Christ. And if there is failure in this exercise, all other methods of walking in the spiritual way are merely a beating about the bush, and profitless trifling, although a person should have very high contemplation and communication with God.

We must not think that anyone slips and comes to ruin by a sudden fall; it is rather that he has been deceived by the beginnings of evil habits, or else, by prolonged mental negligence, virtue has little by little withdrawn from him, and vices have thereby grown stronger, and he has come thus to a miserable fall. For Pride goeth before destruction, and the spirit is lifted up before a fall (Prov.16:18 LXX). Just as a house never falls in ruin by a sudden shock unless there has been some long-standing fault in the foundations, or by the prolonged carelessness of the tenants, little driblets at first penetrate through and slowly undermine the walls, which, inconsequence of the old neglect, open in ever wider apertures and crumble away, and then let in the tempest of rain and storm in torrents. For by slothfulness a building shall be brought down, and through the weakness of hands the house shall drop through (Ecclus. 10:19 LXX).

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

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

When we stand in prayer, those unclean and unspeakable thoughts (blasphemy) assail us; but if we continue praying to the end, they retire at once, for they do not fight those who stand up to them.

Sleep is a particular state of nature, an image of death, inactivity of the senses. Sleep is one, but, like desire, its sources and occasions are many; that is to say, it comes from nature, from food, from demons, or perhaps, sometimes, from extreme and prolonged fasting, through which the flesh is weakened and at last longs for the consolation of sleep.

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.

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).

Do not trust that because of abstinence you will not fall. One who had never eaten was cast from Heaven.

Demons often transform themselves into angels of light and take the form of martyrs, and make it appear to us during sleep that we are in communication with them. Then, when we wake up, they plunge us into unholy joy and conceit. But you can detect their deceit by this very fact. For angels reveal torments, judgments and separations; and when we wake up we find that we are trembling and sad. As soon as we begin to believe the demons in dreams, then they make sport of us when we are awake too. He who believes in dreams is completely inexperienced. 'But he who distrusts all dreams is a wise man. Only believe dreams that warn you of torments and judgments. But if despair afflicts you, then such dreams are also from demons.

Those who mourn and those who are insensitive are not subject to fear, but the cowardly often have become deranged. And this is natural. For the Lord rightly forsakes the proud that the rest of us may learn not to be puffed up.

A servant of the Lord is he who in body stands before men, but in mind knocks at Heaven with prayer.

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

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