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

Patient endurance is the soul's struggle for virtue; where there is struggle for virtue, self-indulgence is banished.

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

Love and self-control purify the soul.

Self-control and strenuous effort curb desire; stillness and intense longing for God wither it.

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

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.

Praise God continually with spiritual hymns and always remain in meditation and in this way you will be able to bear the burden of the temptations that come upon you. A traveler who is carrying a heavy load pauses from time to time and draws in deep breaths; it makes the journey easier and the burden lighter.

We are sons of God or of Satan according to whether we conform to goodness or to evil.

Struggle until death to fulfill the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.

A wise man is one who pays attention to himself and is quick to separate himself from all defilement.

The soul's health consists in dispassion and spiritual knowledge; no slave to sensual pleasure can attain it.

Spiritual reading and prayer purify the intellect, while love and self-control purify the soul's passionate aspect.

The person who is unaffected by the things of this world loves stillness; and he who loves no human thing loves all men.

Fear of the Lord conquers desire, and distress that accords with God's will repulses sensual pleasure.

Just as desire and rage multiply our sins, so self-control and humility erase them.

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

One of the Fathers said: just as it is impossible for a man to see his face in troubled water, so too the soul, unless it be cleansed of alien thoughts, cannot pray to God in contemplation.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)