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

May simplicity go before you everywhere; especially be simple in your faith, hope, and love, for God is an Essence of Simplicity, a Unity that is worshipped everlastingly, and our soul is simple. The simplicity of our soul is hindered by our flesh, when we please it.

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

Blessed are those who, from love of God, have girded their loins with unquestioning simplicity for this sea of suffering, and who do not turn back.

Only when you have seen your imperfection, can you be perfected.

Let all of us who wish to attract the Lord to ourselves draw near to Him as disciples to the Master, simply, without hypocrisy, without duplicity or guile, not out of idle curiosity. He Himself is simple and not composite, and He wants souls that come to Him to be simple and guileless. For you will surely never see simplicity bereft of humility.

Where there is simplicity, there are a hundred Angels, but where there is cleverness – there are none.

Compunction comes when you consider how much you have grieved God Who is so good, so sweet, so merciful, so kind, and entirely full of love; Who was crucified and suffered everything for us. When you meditate on these things and other things the Lord has suffered, they bring compunction.

Walk before God in simplicity, and not in subtleties of the mind. Simplicity brings faith; but subtle and intricate speculations bring conceit; and conceit brings withdrawal from God.

Therefore, let us force ourselves. Let us make a beginning and let us desire the good with all our heart. Because, even if we are not perfect, wanting to be, is the beginning of our salvation. From wanting we come, with God’s help, to struggling and from struggling one is helped in acquiring the virtues. This is why one of the fathers says, 'Give blood and receive spirit', that is to say, 'Struggle and you will become accustomed to virtue.'

The man of Christ embarks upon the path of divine perfection by overcoming, with the aid of evangelical virtues, the sin and evil within him and in the world around him. He constantly marches on from one good to another, from smaller to greater, from greater to greatest. In this progress he never pauses, for any delay would bring spiritual stagnation, numbness, death. Through every pure thought, every holy sentiment, every good desire and kindly word, he progresses toward resurrection, immortality, eternal life.

Live simply and God will not leave you...

The way to attain compunction is an attentive life. ‘The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention,’ as the holy martyr Boniface says.

In the future, a man shall have the degree of deification corresponding to his present perfection in spiritual stature.

The garment of your soul must shine with the whiteness of simplicity.

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

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.

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5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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