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

Who has conquered the body? He who has made the heart contrite. Who then has made the heart contrite? He who has denied himself.

As for uprooting your passions, begin with self-reproach and with awareness of your own weaknesses; and consider yourself to be deserving of afflictions.

Those who mourn and those who are insensitive are not subject to fear, but the cowardly often have become deranged. And this is natural. For the Lord rightly forsakes the proud that the rest of us may learn not to be puffed up.

One who is capable of seeing himself is better than one who has been made worthy to see angels.

Self-condemnation always brings peace and rest to the heart.

The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men.

A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.

God-fearing sorrow mourns either its own sins, or those of others.

He alone knows himself in the best way who thinks of himself as being nothing.

He who really keeps account of his actions considers as lost every day in which he does not mourn, whatever good he may have done in it.

The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny oneself. To deny oneself means to give up one's bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God.

Go to the tombs and see that the assurance of men is nothing. Why then does man who is dust indulge in vainglory? Why does he who is all stench exalt himself? Let us therefore weep for ourselves while we have time, lest, at the hour of our departure, we be found asking God for extra time to repent.

Whence is it that we are Christians? Through our faith, would be the universal answer. And in what way are we saved? Plainly because we were regenerate through the grace given in our baptism.

If a man accuses himself, he is protected on all sides.

The more a man struggles to do good, the more fear grows in him, until it shows him his slightest faults, those which he thought of as nothing while he was still in the darkness of ignorance.

How much joy, how much peace of soul would a man not have wherever he went... if he was one who habitually accused himself.

Should you accuse and condemn yourself before God for the sins on your conscience, you will be justified for doing so.

He who believes in Christ is not judged, for he judges himself, and sets his feet aright to follow the light that goes before him. As a man in deep darkness adapts his step to the candle in his hand, so also he who believes in Christ; that is, he who is set to follow after Christ as the light in the darkness of life.

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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)