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

The person who listens to Christ fills himself with light; and if he imitates Christ, he reclaims himself.

Worldly virtues promote human glory, spiritual virtues the glory of God.

Inside us evil is at work suggesting unworthy inclinations. However, it is not in us in the same way as, to take as an example, water mixes with wine. Evil is in us without being mixed with good. We are a field in which wheat and weeds are growing separately. We are a house in which there is a thief, but also the owner. We are a spring which rises from the middle of the mud, but pours out pure water. All the same, it is enough to stir up the mud and the spring is fouled. It is the same with the soul. If the evil is spread, it forms a unity with the soul and makes it dirty. With our consent, evil is united with the soul; they become accomplices. Yet there comes a moment when the soul can free itself and remain separate again: in repentance, contrition, prayer, recourse to God. The soul could not benefit from these habits if it were always sunk in evil. It is like a marriage. A woman is united with a man and they become one flesh. But when one of them dies, the other is left alone. But union with the Holy Spirit is complete. So, let us become a single spirit with Him. Let us be wholly absorbed by grace.

What can God do with one who willfully gives himself over to the world, and is deceived by its pleasures, or led astray by material wanderings? The man to whom He gives help is the one who turns away from material pleasures and from his former habits, who drags his mind at all times to the Lord, whether it will or not, who denies himself and seeks the Lord only. This is the man whom He keeps under His care: who guards himself on every side from the snares and entanglements of the material world, who works out his own salvation with fear and trembling, who passes with all heed amidst the snares and entanglements and lusts of this world, and seeks the help of the Lord, and hopes by His mercy to be saved through grace.

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

If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions, you cannot reap God's mercy.

Knowing the exact nature of everything, God permits each person to be tested according to his strength. As St. Paul puts it: 'God is to be trusted not to let you be tried beyond your strength, but with the trial He will provide a way out, so that you are able to bear it' (1 Cor. 10:13).

The head of every good striving and the pinnacle of all corrections is to persevere in prayer, by which we may ever obtain, through entreaty of God, all the other virtues as well. By prayer those who are worthy partake of the sanctity of God and spiritual activity and the union of the mind with the Lord in unutterable love. He who constantly forces himself to endure in prayer is roused by spiritual love to Divine fervor and flaming desire towards God, and he receives, according to his measure, the grace of spiritual, sanctifying perfection.

Control your stomach, sleep, anger, and tongue, and you will not 'dash your foot against a stone.'

Near as the body is to the soul, the Lord is nearer, to come and open the locked doors of the heart, and to bestow on us the riches of heaven.

The most important thing in any good effort and the height of all activities is to persevere in prayer, by means of which we can always acquire through supplication the other virtues from God as well.

If we keep remembering the wrongs which men have done us, we destroy the power of the remembrance of God...

Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.

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

Let us not put off from day to day, without observing how sin is injuring us.

Spiritual freedom is release from the passions; without Christ’s mercy you cannot attain it.

Listlessness is an apathy of soul; and a soul becomes apathetic when sick with self-indulgence.

You were commanded to keep the body as a servant, not to be unnaturally enslaved to its pleasures.

Parish

Mailing Address

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

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