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Quotes

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The self-indulgent are distressed by criticism and hardship; those who love God by praise and luxury.

Along with an evil thought, a hostile power enters into us, and then the soul is clouded, and evil thoughts harass her.

Just as the most bitter medicine drives out poisonous things, so prayer joined to fasting drives evil thoughts away.

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

Inside us evil is at work suggesting unworthy inclinations. However, it is not in us in the same way as, to take as an example, water mixes with wine. Evil is in us without being mixed with good. We are a field in which wheat and weeds are growing separately. We are a house in which there is a thief, but also the owner. We are a spring which rises from the middle of the mud, but pours out pure water. All the same, it is enough to stir up the mud and the spring is fouled. It is the same with the soul. If the evil is spread, it forms a unity with the soul and makes it dirty. With our consent, evil is united with the soul; they become accomplices. Yet there comes a moment when the soul can free itself and remain separate again: in repentance, contrition, prayer, recourse to God. The soul could not benefit from these habits if it were always sunk in evil. It is like a marriage. A woman is united with a man and they become one flesh. But when one of them dies, the other is left alone. But union with the Holy Spirit is complete. So, let us become a single spirit with Him. Let us be wholly absorbed by grace.

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...

He who fears God will pay careful attention to his soul and will free himself from communion with evil.

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.

Evil is not an actual substance, but absence of good; just as darkness is nothing but absence of light.

Having guarded ourselves against distractions and worries, let us turn our attention to our body on which mental vigilance is completely dependent. Human bodies differ widely from one another in strength and health. Some by their strength are like copper and iron; others are frail like grass. For this reason everyone should rule his body with great prudence, after exploring his physical powers. For a strong and healthy body, special fasts and vigils are suitable; they make it lighter, and give the mind a special wakefulness. A weak body should be strengthened by food and sleep according to one's physical needs, but on no account to satiety. Satiety is extremely harmful even for a weak body; it weakens it, and makes it susceptible to disease. Wise temperance of the stomach is a door to all the virtues. Restrain the stomach, and you will enter Paradise. But if you please and pamper your stomach, you will hurl yourself over the precipice of bodily impurity, into the fire of wrath and fury, you will coarsen and darken your mind, and in this way you will ruin your powers of attention and self-control, your sobriety and vigilance…

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Parish

Mailing Address

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

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[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)