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

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

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

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

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

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye like a mirror in which the appearance of our inner being can be seen.

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.

If you love the Sender, then also love the letter which is sent from Him to you. For the word of God is given by God to me, to you, and to everyone, so that everyone who desires to be saved may receive salvation through it.

One should nourish the soul with the word of God: for the word of God, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, is angelic bread, by which are nourished souls who hunger for God. Most of all, one should occupy oneself with reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which one should do standing up. From this there occurs an enlightenment in the mind, which is in the mind, which is changed by a Divine change.

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.

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

Our flesh is an unfaithful friend.

If your heart has been softened either by repentance before God or by learning the boundless love of God towards you, do not be proud with those whose hearts are still hard. Remember how long your heart was hard and incorrigible. Seven brothers were ill in one hospital. One recovered from his illness and got up and rushed to serve his other brothers with brotherly love, to speed their recovery. Be like this brother. Consider all men to be your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given you better health than others, know that it is given through mercy, so in health you may serve your frailer brothers.

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

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 ignorance of Scripture is a great cliff and a deep abyss; to know nothing of the divine laws is a great betrayal of salvation.

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

God in His mercy gave us the Holy Scriptures that we might read them, and reading them we might fulfill what is sent by God to man, revealing His Holy Will and teaching us how to live. Consider with what attention and willingness that we ought to read God's letter to us. If an earthly king...wrote to you a letter, would you not read it with great joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful attention. The King of Heaven has sent a letter to you, an earthly and mortal man; yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a treasure. Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Him self is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with Him. God speaks to man, the King of Heaven talks with the corruptible creature, the Lord holds converse with the servant. What can be more pleasant... more instructive?

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

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

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