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

When you are praying, don’t rack your brains to find words. On many occasions the simple, monotonous stammering of children has satisfied their Father who is in heaven. Don’t bother to be loquacious lest the mind is bewildered in the search for words. The tax-collector gained the Lord’s forgiveness with a single sentence, and a single word charged with faith was the salvation of the robber. Loquacity in prayer often fills the head with foolish fancies and provokes distractions. Brevity on the other hand - sometimes only one word is enough - in general favors recollection.

Stint your stomach and you will certainly lock your mouth, because the tongue is strengthened by an abundance of food. Struggle with all your might against the stomach and restrain it with all sobriety. If you labor a little, the Lord will also soon work with you.

Do not be surprised that you fall every day, do not give up, but stand your ground courageously. And assuredly, the angel who guards you will honor your patience. While a wound is still fresh and warm, it is easy to heal; but old, neglected and festering ones are hard to cure, and require for their care much treatment, cutting, plastering and cauterization. Many from long neglect become incurable, but with God all things are possible.

A little fire softens a large piece of wax. So, too, a small indignity often softens, sweetens and wipes away suddenly all the fierceness, insensibility and hardness of our heart.

In the hearts of the meek the Lord finds rest, but a turbulent soul is a seat of the devil.

It is a great work to shake from the soul the praise of men, but to reject the praise of demons is greater.

Control your appetites before they control you.

Meekness is an unchangeable state of mind, which remains the same in honor and dishonor.

If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.

Patience is an unbroken labor of the soul which is never shaken by deserved or undeserved blows.

Love, by its nature, is a resemblance to God, insofar as this is humanly possible. In its activity it is inebriation of the soul. Its distinctive character is to be a fountain of faith, an abyss of patience, a sea of humility.

Love and humility form a holy pair; what the first builds, the second binds, thus preventing the building from falling asunder.

Be concentrated without self-display, withdrawn into your heart. For the demons fear concentration as thieves fear dogs.

As a ray of sun, passing through a crack, lights everything in the house and shows up even the finest dust, so the fear of the Lord, entering a man's heart, reveals to him all his sins.

He who really keeps account of his actions considers as lost every day in which he does not mourn, whatever good he may have done in it.

Do not go into detail in confessing carnal acts, lest you become a traitor to yourself.

Where a fall has overtaken us, there pride has already pitched its tent; because a fall is an indication of pride.

No one in the face of blasphemous thoughts need think that the guilt lies within him, for the Lord is the Knower of hearts, and He is aware that such words and thoughts do not come from us but from our foes.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)