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

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

Faith is the door to mysteries. What the bodily eyes are to sensory objects, faith is to the eyes of the intellect that gaze at hidden treasures.

Do not hate the sinner. Become a proclaimer of God's grace, seeing that God provides for you even though you are unworthy.

What salt is for any food, humility is for every virtue. To acquire it, a man must always think of himself with contrition, self-belittlement and painful salf-judgment. But if we acquire it, it will make us sons of God.

The fact that repentance furnishes hope should not be taken by us as a means to rob ourselves of the feeling of fear, so that one might more freely and fearlessly commit sin. For behold how God in every wise preached fear in all the Scriptures and showed Himself to be a hater of sin.

Ascetical endeavor is the mother of sanctification. From sanctification the first taste of the perception of Christ’s mysteries is born...

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.

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 soul that really loves God and Christ, though it may do ten thousand righteousnesses, esteems itself as having wrought nothing, by reason of its insatiable aspiration after God. Though it should exhaust the body with fastings, with watchings, its attitude towards the virtues is as if it had not even begun to labor for them.

Hold faith and humility fast within you; for through them you will find mercy, help, and words spoken by God in the heart, along with a protector who stands beside you both secretly and manifestly.

Love the poor, and through them you will find mercy.

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 devout soul, even if it practices all the virtues, ascribes everything to God and nothing to itself.

How can one say that a man has attained purity? - When he sees all men as being good, and when none appears to him to be unclean and defiled - then he is indeed pure in heart.

The mind will not be glorified with Jesus, if the body does not suffer for Christ.

Understand what I say: there can be no knowledge of the mysteries of God on a full stomach.

An unmerciful ascetic is a barren tree.

As soon as a man becomes humble, mercy is not slow to envelop him. Then the heart is aware of God’s help, and acquires a certain power of assurance (in God) which arises in it. And when a man is aware that God’s help is actually assisting him, his heart becomes filled with faith in very truth.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)