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

Make the body serve the commandments, keeping it so far as possible free from sickness and sensual pleasure.

Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ.

Every man who loves purity and chastity becomes the temple of God.

Unless a man keeps the commandments of God, he cannot progress, even in a single virtue.

Only with the greatest struggle and sacrifice is the chaff of heresy separated from the wheat of Orthodox truth.

Struggle until death to fulfill the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.

Offer to the Lord the weakness of your nature, fully acknowledging your own powerlessness, and imperceptibly you will receive the gift of chastity.

Christ told His friends, that is, His disciples, to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and scribes, meaning by leaven their false pretence. For hypocrisy is a thing hateful to God, and abominated by man, bringing no reward, and utterly useless for the salvation of the soul, or rather the cause of its perdition. Though sometimes it may escape detection for a little, yet before long it is sure to be laid bare and bring disgrace upon them, like ill-featured women, when they are stripped of that external embellishment which they had produced by artificial means. Hypocrisy, therefore, is a thing foreign to the character of the saints. That it is impossible for those things that are done and said by us to escape the eye of the Deity, He showed by saying: “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid that shall not be known.” For all our words and deeds shall be revealed at the day of judgment.

Beware of reading the doctrines of heretics for they, more than anything else, can equip the spirit of blasphemy against you.

Not he is chaste in whom shameful thoughts stop in time of struggle, work and endeavor, but he who by the trueness of his heart makes chaste the vision of his mind not letting it stretch out towards unseemly thoughts.

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 roof of any house stands upon the foundations and the rest of the structure. The foundations themselves are laid in order to carry the roof. This is both useful and necessary, for the roof cannot stand without the foundations and the foundations are absolutely useless without the roof-- no help to any living creature. In the same way the grace of God is preserved by the practice of the commandments, and the observance of these commandments is laid down like foundations through the gift of God. The grace of the Spirit cannot remain with us without the practice of the commandments, but the practice of the commandments is of no help or advantage to us without the grace of God.

Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.

Almsgiving heals the soul's incensive power; fasting withers sensual desire; prayer purifies the intellect and prepares it for contemplation of created beings. For the Lord has given us commandments which correspond to the powers of the soul.

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

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