• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

Only when you have seen your imperfection, can you be perfected.

Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (Genesis 41:57, 46:6).

It is an insult to the intelligence to be subject to what lacks intelligence and to concern itself with shameful desires.

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

The holy Fathers' counsel is to begin with small things, for, says Ephraim the Syrian, how can you put out a great fire before you have learned to quench a small one? If you wish to set yourself free from a great suffering, crush the small desires, say the holy Fathers. Do not suppose that the one can be separated from the others: they all hang together like a long chain or a net.

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

But, say the saints, now that you recognize the darkness in your own heart and the weakness of your flesh, you lose all desire to pass judgment on your neighbor. Out of your own darkness you see the heavenly light that shines in all created things reflected the clearer: you cannot detect the sins of others while your own are so great. For it is in your eager striving for perfection that you first perceive your own imperfection. And only when you have seen your imperfection, can you be perfected. Thus perfection proceeds out of weakness.

It took Noah a hundred years to build his ark; log upon log he dragged to the construction. Do as he did; drag log upon log to your construction, patiently, in silence, day after day, and do not inquire about your surroundings. Remember that Noah was the only on in the whole world who 'walked with God' (Gen. 6:9), that is, in prayer. Imagine the crowding, the darkness, the stench, that he had to live in until he could step out into the pure air and build an altar to the Lord. The air and the altar you will find within you, explains St. John Chrysostom, but only after you have willingly gone through the same narrow gate as Noah.

Take remarks without grumbling: be thankful when you are scorned, disregarded, ignored. But do not create humbling situations; they are provided in the course of the day as richly as you need. We notice the person who is for ever bowing and fussily servile, and perhaps say, How humble he is! But the truly humble person escapes notice: the world does not know him (I John 3:I); for the world he is mostly a 'zero.'

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.

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

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

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

Do not stir up a memory that will cover your prayer with mud, do not root around in the soil of your old sins.

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Parish

Mailing Address

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

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