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Quotes

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

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?

Blessed is the Good One Who opens His door to the good that they might enter therein, and also does not lock the door of His goodness to the evil if they are converted. Blessed is He Who grants everyone the means to inherit the heavenly kingdom: the righteous inherit it through good deeds, and sinners through repentance. Blessed is He Who for the sake of sinners gave Himself up to death and revilement, Who suffered humiliation in order to grant sinners life.

And among all the works of God, before which the mind grows faint with awe, which so rejoices yet overwhelms the soul as the Passion of our Savior? For as often as we dwell, as best we can, upon His Omnipotence, which He shares with the Father in one and the same nature, more wondrous does His lowliness seem to us than His power; and with more difficulty do we grasp His emptying Himself of the divine Majesty, than His sublime uplifting of the form of a servant.

While you are on earth, regard yourself as a guest of the Host, that is, of Christ. If you are at table, He honors you thus. If you breathe the air, you breathe His air. If you bathe, you bathe in His water. If you travel, you travel around His earth. If you accumulate goods, you accumulate what is His; if you squander them, you squander what is His. If you are influential, you are so by His permission. If you are in company with others, you are with His other guests. If you are in the countryside, you are in His garden. If you are alone, He is present. If you set off anywhere, He sees you. If you do anything, He has it in mind. He is the most careful Host whose guest you have ever been. And be, in your turn, careful towards Him. A good host merits a good guest. These are all simple words, but they speak a great truth to you. All the saints knew this truth, and ordered their lives accordingly. Therefore the immortal Host rewarded them with eternal life in heaven and with glory on earth.

We have become so inattentive to the work of our salvation that we misinterpret many other words in Holy Scripture as well, all because we do not seek the grace of God and in the pride of our minds do not allow it to dwell in our souls. That is why we are without true enlightenment from the Lord, which He sends into the hearts of men who hunger and thirst wholeheartedly for God’s righteousness or holiness.

Spiritual activity embodies Christ in our soul. This involves continual remembrance of the Lord: you hide Him within, in your soul, your heart, your consciousness.

The belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation. The cause of the overthrow and wantonness of Sodom was not drunkenness through wine, but fullness of bread. Hear the Lord rebuking Jerusalem through the prophet. 'For how did thy sister Sodom sin, except in that she ate her bread in fullness and abundance?' (Ezek. xvi. 49)

Whoever has not seen Christ in this life will not see Him in the next. The capability of seeing God is attained through work on oneself in this life.

What is the source from which man's will can draw suitable principles of guidance? For a non-believer, an answer to this is extremely difficult and essentially impossible. Are they to be drawn from science? In the first place, science is interested primarily in questions of knowledge and not morals, and secondly, it does not contain anything solid and constant in principles because it is constantly changing. From philosophy? Philosophy teaches about the relativity of its truths and does not claim their unconditional authority. From practical life? Even less. This life itself is in need of positive principles which can remove from it unruly and unprincipled conditions. But while the answer to the present question is so difficult for non-believers, for a believing Christian the answer is simple and clear. The source of good principles is God's will, and this is revealed to us in the Savior's teaching, in His Holy Gospel. It alone has an unconditional, steadfast authority in this regard; and it alone teaches us self-sacrifice and Christian freedom, Christian equality and brotherhood (a concept stolen by those outside the Faith). The Lord Himself said of true Christians, 'Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father' (Matt. 7:21).

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.

If a person swallows too much food, he is inviting impure thoughts. If he mortifies the stomach, he is creating pure thoughts. Often a lion if it is caressed becomes domesticated, whereas the more you coddle the body, the more it goes wild.

The more one reads and studies the Bible, the more he finds reasons to study it as often and as frequently as he can. According to St. John Chrysostom, it is like an aromatic root, which produces more and more aroma the more it is rubbed.

Jesus the Sun of justice has arisen. The rays of this spiritual Sun spread out in all directions; and one indeed receives less grace, and another more; not that grace so gives itself; it is our own disposition that supplies the measure. For as the sun is one which gives light to the whole universe, and its ray is one, and its splendor, yet it does not shine with equal light upon all the world. Here is wondrous and abundant sunshine, here there is less. This house has little sunlight, this has it more abundantly; not because the sun gives more to this house, and less to that, but according to the windows which were opened to it by those who built the houses, it has more room to enter, and pours in accordingly. And since our thoughts and purposes are the windows of our soul, when you open wide your heart you receive a larger, more generous, divine favor; when you narrow your soul, you can but receive a less abundant grace. Open wide and lay bare your heart and soul to God, that His splendor may enter into you!

How many are there that say: how much I wish to see Christ's fair form, His figure, His clothes. His very shoes. Why, here you see Him: you touch Him; you consume Him: and while you are longing to see His clothes, He gives you Himself, not to look at only, but to touch and to eat and to receive within you .... For it was not enough for Him to become man. Nor yet to be buffeted and slain. He ever mingles Himself with us, and makes us His Body, not by faith alone, but in very truth and reality,...That which the Angels behold with trembling and dare not gaze on with fear because of the radiance that beams from Him, with that we are fed.

Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.

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

The person who listens to Christ fills himself with light; and if he imitates Christ, he reclaims himself.

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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440-526-5192 (Phone)