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

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

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.

Keep your mind from malicious thoughts of your neighbors, knowing that such thoughts are hurled by diabolical power, to keep your mind from your own sins and from seeking.

Go and have pity on all, for through pity, one finds freedom of speech before God.

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

In times of any sorrow, illness, poverty, need, disagreements, and any difficulty, it is better to spend less time in ruminating and talking to ourselves, and more often to turn to Christ our God and to his most pure Mother in prayer, even if it is only a brief one. Through that, the spirit of bitter despondency will be driven away, and the heart will be filled with joy and with hope in God.

When the enemy tempts you with thoughts of faithlessness, with all your heart say, I believe completely whatever the Church believes, whatever Christ says in the Holy Gospels, whatever the Holy Apostles and the Holy Fathers said. 'I don't, however, believe you, devil, for you are a liar and a thief.'

He who fears God will pay careful attention to his soul and will free himself from communion with evil.

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

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

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

Love and self-control purify the soul.

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

Do not seek to find the cause of temptations or whence they come; only pray to suffer them with gratitude.

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

The more one reads and studies the Bible, the more he finds reasons to study it as often and as frequently as he can. According to St. John Chrysostom, it is like an aromatic root, which produces more and more aroma the more it is rubbed.

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)