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

Break the bonds of your friendship for the body and give it only what is absolutely necessary.

All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

The person who is unaffected by the things of this world loves stillness; and he who loves no human thing loves all men.

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

Struggle until death to fulfill the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Do not neglect the practice of the virtues; if you do, your spiritual knowledge will decrease, and when famine occurs you will go down into Egypt (Genesis 41:57, 46:6).

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

If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions, you cannot reap God's mercy.

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.

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

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)