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

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.

Patient endurance is the soul's struggle for virtue; where there is struggle for virtue, self-indulgence is banished.

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

Never prefer gain for yourself over that which is beneficial for your brother.

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

Keep your mind from malicious thoughts of your neighbors, knowing that such thoughts are hurled by diabolical power, to keep your mind from your own sins and from seeking.

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.

Four monks of Scetis, clothed in skins, came one day to see the great Pambo. Each one revealed the virtue of his neighbor. The first fasted a great deal; the second was poor; the third had acquired great charity; and they said of the fourth that he had lived for twenty-two years in obedience to an old man. Abba Pambo said to them, 'I tell you, the virtue of this last one is the greatest. Each of the others has obtained the virtue he wished to acquire; but the last one, restraining his own will, does the will of another. Now it is of such men that the martyrs are made, if they persevere to the end.'

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

If, wishing to correct another, you are moved to anger, you gratify your own passion. Do not lose yourself in order to save another.

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

Mind is not soul, but a gift from God which saves the soul. A mind pleasing to God flows ahead of the soul and counsels it to scorn the temporal, material and corruptible, and to love blessings that are eternal, incorruptible and immaterial, so that, while living in the body, man should, with his mind, apprehend and contemplate the heavenly and the divine. In this way a God-loving mind is a benefactor and savior of the human soul.

Control your stomach, sleep, anger, and tongue, and you will not 'dash your foot against a stone.'

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

The time is coming when people will be insane, and when they see someone who is not insane, they will attack him saying 'You are insane because you are not like us.'

Ascetic exertion, at the personal, family, and parish level, particularly of prayer and fasting, is the characteristic of Orthodoxy.

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)