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

Fasting is beneficial when it is undertaken for quelling desire, humbling the soul, transforming hatred, extinguishing anger, erasing remembrance of wrongs, and for the purity of the understanding and the practice of prayer.

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

Lack of self-control is actually an evil both ancient and modern, though it did not precede its antidote, fasting. By means of our Forefathers' self-indulgence in paradise and their contempt for the fast already in existance there, death entered the world. Sin reigned and brought in the condemnation of our nature from Adam until Christ.

Spiritual freedom is release from the passions; without Christ’s mercy you cannot attain it.

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.

A human being who does not endure courageously the unpleasant burdens of temptations, will never produce fruit worthy of the divine wine-press and eternal harvest, not even if one possesses all other virtues. For one is only perfected through zealously enduring both all the voluntary and involuntary afflictions.

Unless we bear with patience the afflictions that come to us unsought, God will not bless those that we embrace deliberately.

Fasting and self-control are a double wall of defense and whoever lives within them enjoys great peace.

If you feel no pang in committing minor offences you will through them fall into major transgressions.

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

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

Moreover, bear in mind the method of prayer – how it is possible to pray without ceasing, namely by praying in the mind. And this we can always do if we so wish. For when we sit down to work with our hands, when we walk, when we eat, when we drink we can always pray mentally and practice this mental prayer – the true prayer pleasing to God.

For those who bear them with faith, misfortunes serve to correct their sins, to exercise and test them, to lead them to abandon the wretchedness of this life, and to encourage them to long fervently and seek constantly for everlasting adoption as sons and redemption, the truly new life and blessedness.

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

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

The Resurrection of the Lord is the renewal of human nature, and the renewal, re-creation and return to immortality of the first Adam who was swallowed up by death because of sin, and through death went back to the earth from which he was formed.

Let us make ourselves the dwelling of peace, sanctification, and contrite prayer, without which no one will see God (Heb. 12:14). Let us long with the full assurance of faith for that vision promised to the pure in heart, and may we do everything to attain it, for it is accompanied by eternal life, unfading goodness, inexhaustible riches, unchanging and unending delight, glory and kingdom.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)