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  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

Cultivate the Jesus Prayer and a time will come when your heart will leap with joy, just as it does when you are about to see a person who you love very much.

Love your neighbor according to the dictates of the commandments of the Gospel, not at all according to the dictates and impulses of your heart.

Our flesh is an unfaithful friend.

Having guarded ourselves against distractions and worries, let us turn our attention to our body on which mental vigilance is completely dependent. Human bodies differ widely from one another in strength and health. Some by their strength are like copper and iron; others are frail like grass. For this reason everyone should rule his body with great prudence, after exploring his physical powers. For a strong and healthy body, special fasts and vigils are suitable; they make it lighter, and give the mind a special wakefulness. A weak body should be strengthened by food and sleep according to one's physical needs, but on no account to satiety. Satiety is extremely harmful even for a weak body; it weakens it, and makes it susceptible to disease. Wise temperance of the stomach is a door to all the virtues. Restrain the stomach, and you will enter Paradise. But if you please and pamper your stomach, you will hurl yourself over the precipice of bodily impurity, into the fire of wrath and fury, you will coarsen and darken your mind, and in this way you will ruin your powers of attention and self-control, your sobriety and vigilance…

He who has not received within himself the kingdom of God cannot recognize the Antichrist. He is absolutely sure to become in a way incomprehensible to himself his follower.

In the grim struggle with the invisible enemies of our salvation, the supreme weapon is the prayer of Jesus. `All the nations' - the vociferous and wily demons are called nations - `surround me,' says David, `and in the name of the Lord I repulsed them. They encircled and surrounded me like bees, and they burnt like fire among thorns; and in the name of the Lord I repulsed them' (Ps. 117:10-12). With the name of Jesus flog the foes, because there is no stronger weapon in heaven or earth.

Compassion and humility are like the soul’s wings by which it flies up to heaven (Ps. 104:7). Without them prayer cannot rise off the ground...

All men, led by the light of fallen nature alienated from guidance of God's light, will be enticed into submission to the seducer (Antichrist).

Prayer requires the inseparable presence and cooperation of the attention. With attention, prayer becomes the inalienable property of the person praying; in the absence of attention, it is extraneous to the person praying. With attention, it bears abundant fruit; without attention, it produces thorns and thistles. The fruit of prayer consists in illumination of mind and compunction of heart; in the quickening of the soul with the life of the Spirit. Thorns and thistles are a sign of deadness of soul and pharisaical self-esteem which springs from the hardening of a heart which is contented and elated by the quantity of the prayers and the time spent in reciting those prayers.

The way to attain compunction is an attentive life. ‘The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention,’ as the holy martyr Boniface says.

When walking in the way of righteousness, it is impossible not to meet with trouble, or that the body should not suffer pain and weakness and should remain immutable, if we want to live in virtue.

The fruit of prayer consists in illumination of mind and compunction of heart, in the quickening of the soul with the life of the Spirit.

A stranger to Christ is a stranger to God.

By holy baptism original sin is expunged, as also sins committed before baptism. It also eliminates the violent power sin has over us till rebirth; it gives us the grace of the Holy Spirit by which we are united with God in Christ, and we receive power to subdue and conquer sin. For the simple reason that we are not delivered from the struggle with sin, we cannot be entirely free from sin during the whole of our earthly life, and even the righteous man may fall seven times (i.e. often) and rise again by repentance, says Scripture (Prov. 24:16). He falls on account of his weakness and limitations, because he does not always notice sin which subtly and imperceptibly rears its head from his fallen nature, and which is artfully and imperceptibly offered and suggested by fallen spirits. Repentance becomes his secure possession, his constant weapon, his invaluable treasure. By repentance the righteous man maintains his fellowship with Christ. He is healed by repentance from the wounds caused by sin.

We must accomplish the course of our earthly pilgrimage with the greatest attention and watchfulness over ourselves, unceasingly calling upon God in prayer for help.

Your faith in the holy sacrament of confession will save you; the grace of God present in the sacrament of confession will heal you.

When you receive from Heaven the gift of patience, be attentive and vigilant over yourself, so as to hold and keep within yourself the grace of God, lest sin should creep unnoticed into your soul or body and drive away this grace.

God is visiting you when tears come during prayer.

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Parish

Mailing Address

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

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[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)