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

Fasting needn't be limited to abstinence from food alone, because true fasting is departure from evil deeds. Forgive your neighbor any insult, abstain from causing your neighbor offence, abstain from irritation, from senseless sorrows, from fear, wrath, and so on. ‘True fasting is alienation from evil, temperance of the tongue, setting aside of wrath, casting out of lust, idle talk, lies, and oath-breaking’…This is a true and pleasing fast for the Lord. Departing from these vices and from a corrupt state is what comprises a true fast.

Break the bonds of your friendship for the body and give it only what is absolutely necessary.

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

If you are not willing to repent through freely choosing to suffer, unsought sufferings will providentially be imposed on you.

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

All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.

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

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

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

Cultivate patience. Patience is a heavenly gift, a gift from the Heavenly Father... With patience, and love for your fellow men, you become a victor in life's continual trials.

When you pray to God in time of temptation do not say, 'Take this or that away from me', but pray like this: 'O Jesus Christ, sovereign Master, help me and do not let me sin against Thee. . .'

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

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

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

The greatest weapons of someone striving to lead a life of inward stillness are self-control, love, prayer, and spiritual reading.

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

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)