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

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

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.

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

Let not us who would be Christians expect anything else than to be crucified...for to be Christian is to be crucified in this time and in any time since Christ came for the first time. His life is the example and warning to us all. We must be crucified personally, mystically; for through crucifixion is the only path to resurrection, if we would rise with Christ, we must be humbled with him even to the ultimate humiliation, being devoured and spit forth by the uncomprehending world...we must be crucified outwardly in the eyes of the world, for Christ’s kingdom is not of this world and the world cannot bear it, even a single representative, even for the single moment. The world can only accept Antichrist now or at any time.

Concern for one's soul means hardship and humility, for through these God forgives us all our sins.

The Antichrist must be understood as spiritual phenomenon..., why will everyone in the world want to bow down to him, obviously it is because there is something in him that responds to something in us, that something being lack of Christ in us, if we will bow down to him (God forbid that we do so) it will be because we feel an attraction to some kind of external thing which might even look like Christianity since Antichrist means the one that is in place of Christ or looks like Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you have a heart, you can be saved.

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

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

Just as desire and rage multiply our sins, so self-control and humility erase them.

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

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)