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

You were commanded to keep the body as a servant, not to be unnaturally enslaved to its pleasures.

The person who is unaffected by the things of this world loves stillness; and he who loves no human thing loves all men.

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

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

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

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

If you lay down rules for yourself, do not disobey yourself; for he who cheats himself is self-deluded.

All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.

Listlessness is an apathy of soul; and a soul becomes apathetic when sick with self-indulgence.

If you abandon God and are a slave to the passions, you cannot reap God's mercy.

If you are not willing to repent through freely choosing to suffer, unsought sufferings will providentially be imposed on you.

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

Make the body serve the commandments, keeping it so far as possible free from sickness and sensual pleasure.

Just as desire and rage multiply our sins, so self-control and humility erase them.

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

Self-love -- that is, friendship for the body -- is the source of evil in the soul.

The lower you descend, the higher you ascend; and when, like the psalmist, you regard yourself as nothing before the Lord (cf. Ps. 39:5), then imperceptibly you will grow great. And when you begin to realize that you have nothing and know nothing, then you will become rich in the Lord through the practice of the virtues and spiritual knowledge.

The study of divine principles teaches knowledge of God to the person who lives in truth, longing and reverence.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)