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

Meekness is an unchangeable state of mind, which remains the same in honor and dishonor.

Angels are a light for monks, and the monastic life is a light for all men. Therefore let monks strive to become a good example in everything, giving no occasion for stumbling in anything (II Corinthians 6:3) in all their works and words. For if the light becomes darkness, how much darker will be that darkness, that is, those living in the world.

Do not condemn, even if you see with your eyes, for they are often deceived.

Just as over-drinking is a matter of habit, so too from habit comes over-sleeping. Therefore we must struggle with the question of sleep, especially in the early days of obedience, because a long-standing habit is difficult to cure.

Do not go into detail in confessing carnal acts, lest you become a traitor to yourself.

Control your appetites before they control you.

When we turn our spirit from the contemplation of God, we become the slaves of carnal passions.

Let all of us who wish to attract the Lord to ourselves draw near to Him as disciples to the Master, simply, without hypocrisy, without duplicity or guile, not out of idle curiosity. He Himself is simple and not composite, and He wants souls that come to Him to be simple and guileless. For you will surely never see simplicity bereft of humility.

Satiety of the stomach dries the tear sprints, but the stomach when dried produces these waters.

He who has put a stop to anger has also destroyed remembrance of wrongs; because childbirth continues only while the father is alive.

A fish swiftly escapes a hook and a sensual soul shuns solitude.

As galloping horses race one another, so a good community excites mutual fervor.

The angels know how to speak about love, and even they can only do this according to the degree of their enlightenment.

Patience is an unbroken labor of the soul which is never shaken by deserved or undeserved blows.

The Lord often humbles the vainglorious by causing some dishonor to befall them. And indeed the first step in overcoming vainglory is to remain silent and to accept dishonor gladly. The middle stage is to check every act of vainglory while it is still in thought. The end—insofar as one may talk of an end to an abyss—is to be able to accept humiliation before others without actually feeling it.

If you have promised Christ to go by the strait and narrow way, restrain your stomach, because by pleasing it and enlarging it, you break your contract. Attend and you will hear Him who says: 'Spacious and broad is the way of the belly that leads to the perdition of fornication, and many there are who go in by it; because narrow is the gate and strait is the way of fasting that leads to the life of purity, and few there be that find it.'

In detachment, the spirit finds quiet and repose for coveting nothing. Nothing wearies it by elation, and nothing oppresses it by dejection, because it stands in the center of its own humility.

As a ray of sun, passing through a crack, lights everything in the house and shows up even the finest dust, so the fear of the Lord, entering a man's heart, reveals to him all his sins.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)