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.

You are accustomed to look upon your body as upon your own inalienable property, but that is quite wrong, because your body is God's edifice.

Charity, temperance, contemplation, and prayer please God; gluttony, licentiousness, and what multiplies them, please the flesh. Therefore they who are in the flesh cannot please God. And they that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with the passions and concupiscences.

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

The way to attain compunction is an attentive life. ‘The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention,’ as the holy martyr Boniface says.

Our flesh is an unfaithful friend.

Let work humble the body, and when the body is humbled the soul will be humble with it, so that it is truly said that bodily labors lead to humility.

Strive to walk worthily of the vocation to which you were called.

It is an insult to the intelligence to be subject to what lacks intelligence and to concern itself with shameful desires.

Keep the body properly slim so that you reduce the burden of the heart's warfare, with full benefit to yourself.

Break the bonds of your friendship for the body and give it only what is absolutely necessary.

When the flesh flourishes, the soul fades; when the flesh has full liberty, the soul is straitened; when the flesh is satiated, the soul hungers; when the flesh is adorned, the soul is deformed; when the flesh overflows with laughter, the soul is surrounded by misfortune; when the flesh is in the light, the soul is in darkness...

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

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

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

Compunction comes when you consider how much you have grieved God Who is so good, so sweet, so merciful, so kind, and entirely full of love; Who was crucified and suffered everything for us. When you meditate on these things and other things the Lord has suffered, they bring compunction.

The roof of any house stands upon the foundations and the rest of the structure. The foundations themselves are laid in order to carry the roof. This is both useful and necessary, for the roof cannot stand without the foundations and the foundations are absolutely useless without the roof-- no help to any living creature. In the same way the grace of God is preserved by the practice of the commandments, and the observance of these commandments is laid down like foundations through the gift of God. The grace of the Spirit cannot remain with us without the practice of the commandments, but the practice of the commandments is of no help or advantage to us without the grace of God.

Keep the body properly slim so that you reduce the burden of the heart's warfare, with full benefit to yourself.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)