• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

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…

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.

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...

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

Do not shun poverty and afflictions, these wings of buoyant prayer.

The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.

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

I had wasted much of my time and devoted almost all of my youth in acquiring knowledge which now appears as just foolishness before God. Then one day I awoke suddenly, as if from some deep sleep, and saw the intense light of divine truth, and realized the absolute worthlessness of all the wisdom taught by the leaders of this world. I wept many tears for the wretchedness of my life and prayed for some guidance to lead my life to faith. The first thing I did to reform my previous way of life was to mix with the poor...

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.

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

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.

Love the poor, and through them you will find mercy.

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

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

Fear God and keep His commandments both in your feelings and in your intellect. If you force yourself to keep them in your intellect, bit by bit you will attain to fulfilling them in your feelings.

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.

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)