Quotes

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

Neighbors

Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.

St. Anthony the Great

Christians

When you fail to carry out the divine precepts of faith, your faith is blind. For if the precepts of God are light, it is clear that when you fail to put the divine precepts into practice you are without divine light. You are God's servant merely in name, not in reality.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Tribulations

As long as you have bad habits do not reject hardship, so that through it you may be humbled and eject your pride.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Virtues

The blacksmith, who pounds a piece of iron, has previously thought about what he wants to make- a sickle, a knife, an axe - and works accordingly. And so let the man of God ponder in advance which virtue he wishes to acquire, in order not to toil aimlessly.

St. Anthony the Great

Constant Prayer

Unceasing prayer means to have the mind always turned to God with great love, holding alive our hope in Him, having confidence in Him whatever we are doing and whatever happens to us. That is the attitude that the Apostle had when he wrote: ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril? Neither death nor life nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.’ [cf. Rom. 8:35-38]

St. Maximus the Confessor

Obedience

A truly intelligent man has only one care -- wholeheartedly to obey Almighty God and to please Him. The one and only thing he teaches his soul is how best to do things agreeable to God, thanking Him for His merciful Providence in whatever may happen in his life. For just as it would be unseemly not to thank physicians for curing our body, even when they give us bitter and unpleasant remedies, so too would it be to remain ungrateful to God for things that appear to us painful, failing to understand that everything happens through His Providence for our good. In this understanding and this faith in God lie salvation and peace of soul.

St. Anthony the Great

Spiritual Warfare

Restrain the excitable power of your soul by love; mortify the desiring power by self-mastery; give wings to the thinking power by prayer, and the light of your mind will never be dimmed.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Tribulations

He who like Job and the courageous martyrs bears the assaults of unsought-for trials and temptations with an unshakeable will is a powerful lamp; for by his bravery and patience he keeps the light of salvation burning, since he possesses the Lord as his strength and his song. (cf. Ps. 118: 14).

St. Maximus the Confessor

Wisdom

The one who engages in a pursuit of wisdom out of devotion and stands prepared against the invisible forces should pray that both the natural discernment (with its proportionate light) and the illuminating grace of the Spirit remain with him. The former trains the flesh in the acquisition of virtue through asceticism while the latter illuminates the mind to select the companionship of wisdom before all others, according to the Scripture, 'He works the destruction of the strongholds of evil & of every pretension which raises itself up against the knowledge of God' (2 Cor. 10:5).

St. Maximus the Confessor

Judging

He who busies himself with the sins of others, or judges his brother on suspicion, has not yet even begun to repent or to examine himself so as to discover his own sins...

St. Maximus the Confessor

Suffering

Suffering cleanses the soul infected with the filth of sensual pleasure and detaches it completely from material things by showing it the penalty incurred as a result of its affection for them. This is why God in His justice allows the devil to afflict men with torments.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Ascetical Efforts

Love and self-control free the soul from passions; spiritual reading and contemplation deliver the intellect from ignorance; and the state of prayer brings it into the presence of God Himself.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Enemies

If you harbor rancor against anybody, pray for him and you will prevent the passion from being aroused; for by means of prayer you will separate your resentment from the thought of the wrong he has done you. When you have become loving and compassionate towards him, you will wipe the passion completely from your soul.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Love

Scripture calls the virtues ways; and the best of all ways is charity.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Angels

When the intellect is pure, sometimes God Himself approaches and teaches it; and sometimes the angelic powers, or the nature of the created things that it contemplates, suggests holy things to it.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Intention

In all our actions God looks at the intention, whether we do them for Him or from some other motive.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Afflictions

The person who truly wishes to be healed is he who does not refuse treatment. This treatment consists of the pain and distress brought on by various misfortunes. He who refuses them does not realize what they accomplish in this world or what he will gain from them when he departs this life.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Church

The holy Church includes many people, men, women and children without number. They are all quite different from one another in birth, in size, in nationality and language, in style of living and age, in trades and opinions, in clothes and customs, in knowledge and rank, in welfare and in appearance. They are nonetheless all of them in the selfsame Church. Thanks to her, they are all reborn, newly created in the Spirit. The Church grants to all of them without distinction the grace of belonging to Christ and of taking His name by calling themselves Christians. Faith, moreover, puts us in a position which is extremely simple, and incapable of separation, in such a way that the differences between us seem not to exist, because everything is gathered together into the Church is reconciled in her. No one lives alone any more, no one is separated from the others, but all are mutually joined together as brothers and sisters in the simple and indivisible power of faith.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Parish

Faith

Ministries

News

Calendar

Contact

Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.

When you fail to carry out the divine precepts of faith, your faith is blind. For if the precepts of God are light, it is clear that when you fail to put the divine precepts into practice you are without divine light. You are God's servant merely in name, not in reality.

As long as you have bad habits do not reject hardship, so that through it you may be humbled and eject your pride.

The blacksmith, who pounds a piece of iron, has previously thought about what he wants to make- a sickle, a knife, an axe - and works accordingly. And so let the man of God ponder in advance which vir­tue he wishes to acquire, in order not to toil aimlessly.

Restrain the excitable power of your soul by love; mortify the desiring power by self-mastery; give wings to the thinking power by prayer, and the light of your mind will never be dimmed.

He who like Job and the courageous martyrs bears the assaults of unsought-for trials and temptations with an unshakeable will is a powerful lamp; for by his bravery and patience he keeps the light of salvation burning, since he possesses the Lord as his strength and his song. (cf. Ps. 118: 14).

He who busies himself with the sins of others, or judges his brother on suspicion, has not yet even begun to repent or to examine himself so as to discover his own sins...

Suffering cleanses the soul infected with the filth of sensual pleasure and detaches it completely from material things by showing it the penalty incurred as a result of its affection for them. This is why God in His justice allows the devil to afflict men with torments.

Love and self-control free the soul from passions; spiritual reading and contemplation deliver the intellect from ignorance; and the state of prayer brings it into the presence of God Himself.

Scripture calls the virtues ways; and the best of all ways is charity.

When the intellect is pure, sometimes God Himself approaches and teaches it; and sometimes the angelic powers, or the nature of the created things that it contemplates, suggests holy things to it.

In all our actions God looks at the intention, whether we do them for Him or from some other motive.

The person who truly wishes to be healed is he who does not refuse treatment. This treatment consists of the pain and distress brought on by various misfortunes. He who refuses them does not realize what they accomplish in this world or what he will gain from them when he departs this life.

Elder Joseph the Hesychast, Monastic Wisdom; Letters...

Join our Parish Mailing List

The blacksmith, who pounds a piece of iron, has previously thought about what he wants to make- a sickle, a knife, an axe - and works accordingly. And so let the man of God ponder in advance which virtue he wishes to acquire, in order not to toil aimlessly.