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

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

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

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

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

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.'

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

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

Your prayer must have four constituent parts, says Basil the Great: adoration, thanksgiving, confession of sin and petition for salvation.

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

Long-suffering and readiness to forgive curb anger; love and compassion wither it.

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

No, the God of love and peace and complete sacrifice does not care to live in the midst of bustling and ado to please oneself, even if this is carried on perhaps under some kind of pretence. There is one way to make a test: if your peace of mind is troubled, if you become dejected or perhaps a little angry if for some reason you have to give up performing the good deed you had planned, then you know that the spring was muddy.

To the world belong our desires and impulses. enumerates them: Weakness for wealth and for collecting and owning things of different kinds; the urge for physical (sensuous) enjoyment; the longing for honor, which is the root of envy; the desire to conquer and be the deciding factor; pride in the glory of power; the urge to adorn oneself and to be liked; the craving for praise; concern and anxiety for physical well-being. All these are of the world; they combine deceitfully to hold us in heavy bonds. If you wish to free yourself, scrutinize yourself with the help of that list and see clearly what you have to struggle against in order to approach God. For friendship with the world is enmity with God, and whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (James 4:4).

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

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.

The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.

The study of divine principles teaches knowledge of God to the person who lives in truth, longing and reverence.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)