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

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

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

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

A holy man told us one day, that the source of all heresies and schisms in the church was, loving God too little, and ourselves too much.

The greatest obstacle that obstructs God's grace is self-love. When God finds one's heart emptied of all desires, He fills it with His grace.

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

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

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.

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...

As a man cannot remain unscathed who spares his enemy on the field of battle, so a man engaged in spiritual warfare cannot save his soul if he spares his body.

There is no venom more poisonous than that of the asp or cobra, and there is no evil greater than that of self-love. The winged children of self-love are self-praise, self-satisfaction, gluttony, unchastity, self-esteem, jealousy and the crown of all these, pride. Pride can drag down not men alone, but even angels from heaven, and surround them with darkness instead of light.

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

Self-love precedes all passions, and the scorn of ease precedes all the virtues.

He who loves himself cannot love God. But he who, for love of God, does not love himself, loves God.

The man who pets a lion may tame it, but the man who coddles the body makes it ravenous.

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.

Since self-love is the origin and mother of evil, when this is eradicated all the things which derive from it are eradicated as well. For when self-love is absent, not the slightest trace or form of evil can exist in any way at all.

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.

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

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