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

I think it best that a man should have a little bit of all the virtues. Therefore, get up early every day and acquire the beginning of every virtue and every commandment of God. Use great patience, with fear and long-suffering, in the love of God, with all the fervor of your soul and body. Exercise great humility, bear with interior distress; be vigilant and pray often with reverence and groaning, with purity of speech and control of your eyes. When you are despised do not get angry; be at peace, and do not render evil for evil. Do not pay attention to the faults of others, and do not try to compare yourself with others, knowing you are less than every created thing. Renounce everything material and that which is of the flesh. Live by the cross, in warfare, in poverty of spirit, in voluntary spiritual asceticism, in fasting, penitence and tears, in discernment, in purity of soul, taking hold of that which is good. Do your work in peace. Persevere in keeping vigil, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, and in sufferings. Shut yourself in a tomb as though you were already dead, so that at all times you will think death is near.

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

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

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

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

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

Worldly virtues promote human glory, spiritual virtues the glory of God.

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

Humility and the fear of God are above all virtues.

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

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

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

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).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)