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

To bear a grudge and pray, means to sow seed on the sea and expect a harvest.

Why do you increase your bonds? Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and do not find it. This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.

Not every man is wakened to wonder by what is said spiritually and has great power concealed in it. A word concerning virtue has need of a heart unbusied with the earth and its converse.

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

The fear of God is the beginning of virtue, and it is said to be the offspring of faith. It is sown in the heart when a man withdraws his mind from the world’s distraction so as to confine its wandering thoughts within the ruminations of reflection upon the restitution to come.

Ascetical endeavor is the mother of sanctification. From sanctification the first taste of the perception of Christ’s mysteries is born...

Do not oppose the thoughts, which the enemy sows in you, but rather cut off all converse with them by prayer to God. We have not always strength enough so to oppose hostile thoughts as to stop them; on the contrary, in such attempts they frequently inflict us with a wound that is long in healing.

It is a spiritual gift from God for a man to perceive his sins.

Humility, even without works, can save a man.

Do not approach the words of the mysteries contained in the divine Scriptures without prayer and beseeching God for help, but say: 'Lord, grant me to perceive the power in them!' Reckon prayer to be the key to the true understanding of the divine Scriptures.

Not he is chaste in whom shameful thoughts stop in time of struggle, work and endeavor, but he who by the trueness of his heart makes chaste the vision of his mind not letting it stretch out towards unseemly thoughts.

The man who is conscious of his sins is greater than he who profits the whole world by the sight of his countenance.

Love of God proceeds from conversing with him; this conversation of prayer comes about through stillness, and stillness comes with the stripping away of the self.

Lips that utter frequent thanksgivings shall be blessed by God, and the grateful heart is visited by grace.

Stillness mortifies the outward senses and resurrects the inward movements, whereas agitation does the opposite, that is, it resurrects the outward senses and deadens the inward movements.

Every man that loves God loves a quiet life.

Self-love precedes all passions, and the scorn of ease precedes all the virtues.

The world is everything that holds us and satisfies us sensuously: that within us which has not known God (John 17:25).

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

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