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

Sometimes, when we are overcome by pride or impatience and are unwilling to amend our ill-conditioned and disordered way of life, we complain that what we need is solitude, as though in solitude, meeting with no provocation, we should find there the virtue of patience, making excuses for our slackness, and laying the blame of our agitation not upon our own lack of patience, but ascribing it to the faults of our brethren, whereas so long as we impute to others the causes of our own faults, we shall never be able to reach the goal of patience and of perfection.

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...

It is, indeed, impossible for the mind not to be troubled by thoughts, but accepting them or rejecting them is possible for everyone who makes an effort...therefore we practice the frequent reading of Scripture, so that we may be open to a spiritual point of view. For this reason we frequently chant the psalms, so that we may continually grow in compunction. For this reason we are diligent in vigils, fasting, and praying, so that the mind which has been stretched to its limits may not taste earthly things but contemplate heavenly ones. When these things cease because negligence has crept in again, then, it is inevitable that the mind, by the accumulated filth of the vices, will soon turn in a carnal direction and fall.

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

A wise man is one who pays attention to himself and is quick to separate himself from all defilement.

The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.

Self-control and strenuous effort curb desire; stillness and intense longing for God wither it.

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

Long-suffering and readiness to forgive curb anger; love and compassion wither it.

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.

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

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

Worldly virtues promote human glory, spiritual virtues the glory of God.

The soul's health consists in dispassion and spiritual knowledge; no slave to sensual pleasure can attain it.

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

Listlessness is an apathy of soul; and a soul becomes apathetic when sick with self-indulgence.

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

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.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)