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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Labor to acquire meekness. Concerning the heavenly virtues, meekness and humility, the Lord Himself teaches us, saying: Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls (Matt. 11:29). Learn not from angels, nor from men, but from Me, He says; that is, from the higher wisdom.

I think that for those living in community obedience is a greater virtue than chastity, however perfect. Chastity carries within it the danger of pride, but obedience has within it the promise of humility.

A treasure that is known is quickly spent: and even so any virtue that is commented on and made a public show of is destroyed. Even as wax is melted before the face of fire, so is the soul enfeebled by praise, and loses the toughness of its virtue.

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

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

Fear of the Lord conquers desire, and distress that accords with God's will repulses sensual pleasure.

Blessed stillness gives birth to blessed children: self-control, love and pure prayer.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)