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Quotes

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

Waves of temptation of every sort were aimed at the righteous ones, but they did not grow faint. Glory did not make them haughty, nor did abusive treatment cause them to be despondent. They were always the same; never did the fragrance of their virtues falter.

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

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…

Whenever in your path you find unchanging peace, beware: you are very far from the divine paths trodden by the weary feet of the saints. For as long as you are journeying in the way to the city of the Kingdom and are drawing near the city of God, this will be a sign for you: the strength of the temptations that you encounter. And the nearer you draw close and progress, the more temptations will multiply against you.

Remember that a good action is always either preceded or followed by temptations. God permits this so that the virtue, exercised in that particular action, may be confirmed, consolidated, steeled.

The person who truly comes to serve God must prepare his soul, as it says in the Wisdom of Sirach (2:1), for temptations. Thus, that he will never be surprised or disturbed by what happens, believing that nothing happens without the providence of God and where there is the providence of God certainly what happens is good and for the benefit of the soul. For, everything that God does, He does for our benefit and because He loves us and has pity on us. We must, as the Apostle says, 'In everything give thanks' (1 Thess. 5:18), for His goodness.

Some temptations bring men pleasure, some grief, some bodily pain. The Physician of souls by means of His judgments applies the remedy to each soul according to the cause of its passions.

When you pray fervently, watch, for there will be temptations. This happens to everyone.

The Fathers used to say, “If temptation befall thee in the place thou dost inhabit, desert not the place in the time of temptation: for if thou dost, wheresoever thou goest, thou shalt find what thou fliest before thee.”

Spiritual reading, vigils and prayer bring the straying intellect to stability.

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.

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.

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

The temptation comes in accordance with one’s stature. And you must endure in order to emerge victorious. Christ, Who sets the contest, allows temptations for this reason: so that we may gain victories against the enemy, be purged from passions, and be perfected.

Do not seek to find the cause of temptations or whence they come; only pray to suffer them with gratitude.

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If a man tries to overcome temptations without prayer and patient endurance, he will become more entangled in them instead of driving them away.

Temptations are permitted so that we may learn what is in our heart.

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)