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

How then shall we escape the disasters that anger brings? By training the force of our feelings not to rush ahead of the power of reason.

Every man who loves purity and chastity becomes the temple of God.

He who has put a stop to anger has also destroyed remembrance of wrongs; because childbirth continues only while the father is alive.

A brother asked Abba Isidore the priest, 'Why are the demons so frightened of you?' The old man said to him, 'Because, ever since the day I began practicing ascesis, I have striven to prevent anger from reaching my lips.'

If, wishing to correct another, you are moved to anger, you gratify your own passion. Do not lose yourself in order to save another.

Empty your mind of these two things: the belief that you are deserving of great things, or the thought that any man is beneath you. If you do this anger will never be permitted to rise up within you.

How destructive to the heart is even momentary attachment for anything earthly.

Truly, arrogance knows that it is guilty; therefore it places anger at the gate, to act as its sentry.

He who has tasted the things on high easily despises what is below. But he who has not tasted the things above finds joy in possessions.

Wrath is a reminder of hidden hatred, that is to say, remembrance of wrongs. Wrath is a desire for the injury of the one who has provoked you. Irascibility is the untimely blazing up of the heart. Bitterness is a movement of displeasure seated in the soul. Anger is an easily changeable movement of one’s disposition and disfiguration of soul.

It is necessary most of all for one who is fasting to curb anger, to accustom himself to meekness and condescension, to have a contrite heart, to repulse impure thoughts and desires, to examine his conscience, to put his mind to the test and to verify what good has been done by us in this or any other week, and which deficiency we have corrected in ourselves in the present week. This is true fasting.

Offer to the Lord the weakness of your nature, fully acknowledging your own powerlessness, and imperceptibly you will receive the gift of chastity.

If you want to pray properly, do not let yourself be upset or you will run in vain.

We must resist and avoid like deadly poison the desire to possess earthly goods.

Go, sell all that belongs to you and give it to the poor and taking up the cross, deny yourself; in this way you will be able to pray without distraction.

Paissy the Great, having lost his temper, begged the Lord to deliver him from irritability. The Lord appeared to him and said, ‘Paissy, if thou dost not wish to get angry, desire nothing, neither criticize nor hate any man, and thou wilt have no anger.’

Through anger wisdom is lost, so that we no longer know what we are to do, or in what manner we should do it.

Prayer is the seed of gentleness and the absence of anger.

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

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