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

A man who has embraced poverty offers up prayer that is pure, while a man who loves possessions prays to material images.

The soul of prayer is attentiveness. As the body without a soul is dead, so prayer without attentiveness is dead.

Do not allow human respect to get in your way when you hear someone slandering his neighbor. Instead, say to him, 'Brother, stop it! I do worse things every day, so how can I criticize him?' You accomplish two things when you say this. You heal yourself and you heal your neighbor with one bandage.

All men, led by the light of fallen nature alienated from guidance of God's light, will be enticed into submission to the seducer (Antichrist).

The practice of the prayer of Jesus holy David, or more accurately the Holy Spirit by the mouth of David, offers to all Christians without exception: 'The kings of the earth and all people, princes and all judges of the earth, young men and maidens - let elders with the young praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted (PS. 148:11-13).' A literal understanding of the states enumerated here would be perfectly permissible, but their essential meaning is spiritual.

A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.

The way to attain compunction is an attentive life. ‘The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention,’ as the holy martyr Boniface says.

As too many sticks often choke a fire and put it out, while making a lot of smoke, so excessive sorrow often makes the soul smoky and dark, and dries the stream of tears.

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

Do not be surprised that you fall every day; do not give up, but stand your around courageously. And assuredly the angel who guards you will honor your patience, while a wound is still fresh and warm it is easy to heal, but old, neglected and festering ones are hard to cure, and require for their care much treatment, cutting, plastering and cauterization. Many from long neglect become incurable. But with God all things are possible...

Meekness is an immovable state of soul which remains unaffected, whether in evil report or in good report, in dishonor or in praise.

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

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

Compassion and humility are like the soul’s wings by which it flies up to heaven (Ps. 104:7). Without them prayer cannot rise off the ground...

Those who have acquired genuine prayer experience an ineffable poverty of the spirit when they stand before the Lord, glorify and praise Him, confess to Him, or present to Him their entreaties. They feel as if they had turned to nothing, as if they did not exist. That is natural. For when he who is in prayer experiences the fullness of the divine presence, of Life Itself, of Life abundant and unfathomable, then his own life strikes him as a tiny drop in comparison to the boundless ocean. That is what the righteous and long-suffering Job felt as he attained the height of spiritual perfection. He felt himself to be dust and ashes; he felt that he was melting and vanishing as does snow when struck by the sun's burning rays (Job 42:6).

Repentance raises the fallen, mourning knocks at the gate of Heaven, and holy humility opens it.

Stint your stomach and you will certainly lock your mouth, because the tongue is strengthened by an abundance of food. Struggle with all your might against the stomach and restrain it with all sobriety. If you labor a little, the Lord will also soon work with you.

It is natural for the poor man to beg, and it is natural for man made poor by the fall into sin to pray.

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

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