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Quotes

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

No virtue makes flesh-bound man so like a spiritual angel as does self-restraint, for it enables those still living on earth to become, as the Apostle says, 'citizens of heaven' (cf. Phil. 3:20).

'Grace always precedes temptations.' He knew that grace always precedes temptations as a forewarning preparation. As soon as you perceive grace, gird yourself and say: 'Here comes the call to battle! Beware, attend, O Clay, to where the wicked on will strike the battle. Many times it comes quickly, and many times after two or three days. In any event, it will come, and the earthworks must be firm. Confessions every evening, Obedience to the elder, humility and love towards all. By these means lighten the affliction.' Grace is divided into three stages: purifying, enlightening, and perfecting. So also are deeds: natural, supernatural, contranatural. According to these three stages on ascends and descends. The great gifts one receives are also three: contemplation, love, dispassion.

When Christ Himself spoke to Paul and called him, He could have opened his eyes at once and made known to him the way of perfection; instead He sent him to Ananias and told him to learn from him the way of truth, saying: 'Arise and go into the city, and there you will be told what you must do' (Acts 9:6). In this manner He teaches us to be guided by those who are advanced on the way, so that the vision rightly given to Paul should not be wrongly interpreted; otherwise it might lead later generations presumptuously to suppose that each individual must be initiated into truth directly by God, as Paul was, and not by the fathers.

He who knows himself pays no heed to the sins of others, but looks at his own and is always repenting over them; he reflects concerning himself, and condemns himself, and does not interfere in anything apart from his own position.

Of the Only Case in Which Anger is Good... But we have a use for anger most properly planted within us, and for this use alone it is profitable and healthful for us to entertain it, namely, when we burn with wrathful indignation against the lustful motions of our own hearts, and are enraged to find that those things which we should be ashamed to do or to speak of before men have found admittance into the secret places of our minds. We may then well dread and fear exceedingly the presence of the Angels and the Omnipresence of God Himself, and His all-seeing Eye from which no secrets of our hearts can lie hid.

The full and complete definition of repentance is that we never again allow in ourselves the sins of which we repent, or whereby our conscience is stung. The mark of satisfaction and forgiveness is when we have driven out from our hearts all desire for them.

For never is a man forced into sin by another’s fault, unless he have, stowed away in his heart, matter for evil deeds. Nor is a man to be held a victim of sudden deception if at the sight of a woman’s beauty he fall into an abyss of vile lust. Rather is it that diseases of soul, deeply hidden away and lost to view, come then to the surface on the occasion of the sight.

The enemy is within ourselves. An invisible war is taking place within us. If interior evil is defeated, then the external, weaker, foe will surrender.

I suppose that it is sometimes better to fall oneself and rise, than to judge one's neighbor; because one who has sinned is incited to self-abasement and repentance, while he who judges one who has sinned becomes hardened in an illusion about himself and in pride. Therefore everyone must guard himself, as much as possible, so as not to judge.

If we remember the thief who, for a single confession on the cross, was taken into Paradise, we shall realize that it was not for the merit of the life he lived that he obtained so great blessedness, but that it was his by the gift of God, Who had mercy on him. Or, let us think of David, the king, whose two grievous and awful crimes were wiped away by one word of penitence. Neither here do we see that the merit of what he did was equal to obtaining pardon for such great offense, but the grace of God did the more abound when on the occasion of true penitence He did away with all that weight of sin for one single word of genuine confession. Again, when we consider the beginnings of man's calling and salvation, which, as the Apostle tells us, is not of ourselves or of our words, but we are saved by the gift and grace of God, we shall be able clearly to perceive how the end of perfection is not 'of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God Who showeth mercy,' Who makes us victors over our vices, although we have no merit at all of life or labors to weigh against them, nor does the effort of our will avail for us to reach the steep summit of righteousness, or to subdue the flesh which we are bound to use... For the outcome of all good flows from His grace, Who hath bestowed so great an eternity of bliss and such immeasurable glory, with manifold generosity, upon the weak will and the short life-work of man.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of our salvation, and its constant guardian. This it is which secures both the beginning of conversion, and the purging away of vices, and the safe retention of virtues...

Hence, in whatever state a person is, he sometimes finds himself making pure and intense prayers. For even from that first and lowest sort, which has to do with recalling the future judgment, the one who is still subject to the punishment of terror and the fear of judgment is occasionally so struck with compunction that he is filled with no less joy of spirit from the richness of his supplication than the one who, examining the kindnesses of God and going over them in the purity of his heart, dissolves into unspeakable gladness and delight. For, according to the words of the Lord, the one who realizes that more has been forgiven him begins to love more.

The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men.

Strive as well as you can to enter deeply with the heart into the church reading and singing and to imprint these on the tablets of the heart.

We must with unflagging zeal and care give ourselves to the pursuit of virtue, and constantly occupy ourselves in its practice, lest at any time progress may cease, and regress immediately take its place.... To cease to acquire means to lose, for the will which goes no longer forward will not be far from peril of falling back.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Everything we do, our every objective, must be undertaken for the sake of this purity of heart. This is why we take on loneliness, fasting, vigils, work, nakedness. For this we must practice the reading of the Scripture, together with all the other virtuous activities, and we do so to trap and to hold our hearts free of the harm of every dangerous passion and in order to rise step by step to the high point of love.

Leaves, whether of gold or lead, placed over the eyes, obstruct the sight equally, for the value of gold does not affect the blindness it produces. Similarly, anger, whether reasonable or unreasonable, obstructs our spiritual vision.

Temptations are sent for improvement when God delivers his righteous ones to various temptations, humiliating them for some slight and unimportant offense, or to increase their purity, in order that every uncleanliness of thought, or... dross which He sees they have harbored in secret, may be burnt away in this present life, and that so He may bring them, as it were pure gold, to the future judgment...

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

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