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

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

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

Unless a man keeps the commandments of God, he cannot progress, even in a single virtue.

My children, desire to purify your hearts from envy and from anger with each other, lest death should overcome you, and you will be counted among the murderers. For whosoever hates his brother, kills a soul.

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.

Almsgiving heals the soul's incensive power; fasting withers sensual desire; prayer purifies the intellect and prepares it for contemplation of created beings. For the Lord has given us commandments which correspond to the powers of the soul.

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

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.

When anyone is disturbed or saddened under the pretext of a good and soul-profiting matter, and is angered against his neighbor, it is evident that this is not according to God: for everything that is of God is peaceful and useful and leads a man to humility and to judging himself.

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

Do not let the sun go down on the anger of your brother (Eph. 4:26); that is, let no one be angry and enraged against his brother until the setting of the sun.

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.’

When one gets angry, he is deprived of God's protection.

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

Silence of lips is better and more wonderful than any edifying conversation. Strive to acquire humility and submissiveness. Never insist that anything should be according to your will, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this exhausts the heart and blinds the mind, and thereon leads to negligence and makes the heart unfeeling.

Of the Only Case in Which Anger is Good... But we have a use for anger most properly planted within us, and for this use alone it is profitable and healthful for us to entertain it, namely, when we burn with wrathful indignation against the lustful motions of our own hearts, and are enraged to find that those things which we should be ashamed to do or to speak of before men have found admittance into the secret places of our minds. We may then well dread and fear exceedingly the presence of the Angels and the Omnipresence of God Himself, and His all-seeing Eye from which no secrets of our hearts can lie hid.

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

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

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

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