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

A small affliction borne for God’s sake is better [before God] than a great work performed without tribulation, because affliction willingly borne brings to light the proof of love.

Lips that utter frequent thanksgivings shall be blessed by God, and the grateful heart is visited by grace.

When patience greatly increases in our soul, it is a sign that we have secretly received the grace of consolation. The power of patience is stronger than the joyful thoughts that descend into the heart. Life in God is the downfall of the senses; when the heart lives, the senses fall away. The resurrection of the senses is the deadening of the heart; when the senses are quickened, it is a sign that the heart has died to God.

The key to Divine gifts is given to the heart by love of neighbor, and, in proportion to the heart's freedom from the bonds of the flesh, the door of knowledge begins to open before it.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

Love is the Kingdom, which the Lord mystically promised His disciples to eat in His Kingdom. For when we hear Him say, 'You shall eat and drink at the table of My Kingdom,' what do we suppose we shall eat, if not love? Love is sufficient to nourish a man instead of food and drink. This is the wine 'which makes glad the heart of man.' Blessed is he who partakes of this wine! Licentious men have drunk this wine and felt shame; sinners have drunk it and have forgotten the pathways of stumbling; drunkards have drunk this wine and became firm in virtue; the rich have drunk it and desired poverty; the poor have drunk it and been enriched with hope; the sick have drunk it and become strong; the unlearned have taken it and been made wise.

The prayers of those who hold grudges is sowing on stone.

It is better to eat meat and drink wine and not to eat the flesh of one's brethren through slander.

So long as the soul is sick with passions, its senses have no perception of the spiritual; and the soul does not even know how to desire it, but desires it only from hearsay and writings. The power of the soul is cured of these diseases by the hidden practice of commandments, with sharing in Christ's passion.

The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men.

Not he is chaste in whom shameful thoughts stop in time of struggle, work and endeavor, but he who by the trueness of his heart makes chaste the vision of his mind not letting it stretch out towards unseemly thoughts.

He who is deprived of repentance is deprived of the delight to come. He who is close to all things is far from repentance.

The more a man's tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by verbosity.

Continual study in the writings of the saints fills the soul with incomprehensible wonder and divine gladness.

Stillness mortifies the outward senses and resurrects the inward movements, whereas agitation does the opposite, that is, it resurrects the outward senses and deadens the inward movements.

If you pile up on one side of the scales all the works demanded by ascetic life, and on the other side-silence, you will find that the latter outweighs the former. Many good counsels have been given us, but if a man embraces silence, to follow them will become superfluous.

Beware of reading the doctrines of heretics for they, more than anything else, can equip the spirit of blasphemy against you.

Repentance is the door of mercy, opened to those who seek it.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)