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

Patient endurance is the soul's struggle for virtue; where there is struggle for virtue, self-indulgence is banished.

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

Accordingly, a man will neither be puffed up through pride, nor cast down by despair, if he uses the good things divinely bestowed on him, to the glory of the Giver; withholding his desires from the things which he knows will hurt him. And so he that would preserve himself from the wickedness of envy, from the corruption of sensuality, from the unrest of anger, from the desire of revenge, will be purified by the sanctifying power of true abstinence, and will taste the joy of imperishable delights, so that by making spiritual use of them, he will learn to change earthly possessions into heavenly, not by storing what he has received, but by multiplying more and more that which he has been given.

The greatest weapons of someone striving to lead a life of inward stillness are self-control, love, prayer, and spiritual reading.

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

Worldly virtues promote human glory, spiritual virtues the glory of God.

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.

He who fears God will pay careful attention to his soul and will free himself from communion with evil.

Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.

Love and self-control purify the soul.

Blessed stillness gives birth to blessed children: self-control, love and pure prayer.

There is nothing more efficacious against the wiles of the devil, dearly beloved, than the kindness of forgiveness, and the bountifulness in charity, by means of which sin is either avoided or overcome.

For forgiveness of sins is most efficaciously prayed for with almsgiving and fasting, and supplications that are winged by such aids mount swiftly to God’s ears; since it is written, 'the merciful man doeth good to his own soul' (Prov. xi. 17), and nothing is so much a man’s own as that which he spends on his neighbor. For that part of his material possessions with which he ministers to the needy, is transformed into eternal riches, and such wealth is begotten of this bountifulness as can never be diminished or in any way destroyed, for 'blessed are the merciful, for God shall have mercy on them' (Matt. v.7), and He himself shall be their chief Reward, who is the Model of His own command.

Long-suffering and readiness to forgive curb anger; love and compassion wither it.

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

And among all the works of God, before which the mind grows faint with awe, which so rejoices yet overwhelms the soul as the Passion of our Savior? For as often as we dwell, as best we can, upon His Omnipotence, which He shares with the Father in one and the same nature, more wondrous does His lowliness seem to us than His power; and with more difficulty do we grasp His emptying Himself of the divine Majesty, than His sublime uplifting of the form of a servant.

Let no one be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, through which He redeemed the world.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)