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

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.

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

Just as the most bitter medicine drives out poisonous things, so prayer joined to fasting drives evil thoughts away.

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

The old man was asked, 'What is the good of the fasts and watchings which a man imposes on himself?' and he replied, 'They make the soul humble. For it is written, Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins' (Psalm 25:18). 'So if the soul gives itself all this hardship, God will have mercy on it.' The old man was (also) asked, 'What should a man do in all the temptations and evil thoughts that come upon him?' The old man said to him, 'He should weep and implore the goodness of God to come to his aid, and he will obtain peace if he prays with discernment. For it is written, 'With the Lord on my side I do not fear. What can man do to me?' (Psalm 118:6).

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

Love reveals itself in works of mercy.

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

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

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

Self-love -- that is, friendship for the body -- is the source of evil in the soul.

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

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

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.

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

The old man (Abba Moses) was asked, 'What is the good of the fasts and watchings which a man imposes on himself?' and he replied, 'They make the soul humble. For it is written, ‘Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins’ (Psalm 25:18). So if the soul gives itself all this hardship, God will have mercy on it.'

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)