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Quotes

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

When a valve of the heart closes to the receptivity of worldly enjoyments, another valve opens for the reception of spiritual joys.

'Grace always precedes temptations.' He knew that grace always precedes temptations as a forewarning preparation. As soon as you perceive grace, gird yourself and say: 'Here comes the call to battle! Beware, attend, O Clay, to where the wicked on will strike the battle. Many times it comes quickly, and many times after two or three days. In any event, it will come, and the earthworks must be firm. Confessions every evening, Obedience to the elder, humility and love towards all. By these means lighten the affliction.' Grace is divided into three stages: purifying, enlightening, and perfecting. So also are deeds: natural, supernatural, contranatural. According to these three stages on ascends and descends. The great gifts one receives are also three: contemplation, love, dispassion.'

The Lord ordereth 'all things in measure and weight,' and brings on us the temptations which do not exceed our power to endure them, but tests all that fight in the cause of true religion by affliction, not suffering them to be tempted above that they are able to bear.

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

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.

How destructive to the heart is even momentary attachment for anything earthly.

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

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.

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.”

When you pray to God in time of temptation do not say, 'Take this or that away from me', but pray like this: 'O Jesus Christ, sovereign Master, help me and do not let me sin against Thee. . .'

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.

As earth thrown over it extinguishes a fire burning in a stove, so worldly cares and every kind of attachment to something, however small and insignificant, destroy the warmth of the heart which was there at first.

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.

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

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Intemperance and attachment to things cause torrents of passions to flood the soil of the heart and deposit there all the mud and filth of thoughts, thus confusing the mind, darkening the heart and weighing down the body. In the heart and the soul they produce negligence, darkness and death and deprive them of the feeling and disposition natural to them.

According to the teaching of the Fathers, any impression which, touching the heart, fills it with a great irritation, must come from the region of passions. Therefore impulses which spring from the heart should not be followed at once, but only after careful examination and fervent prayer. God preserve us from a blind heart! It is well known that passions do blind the heart and screen the shining sun of the mind that we should all strive to gaze at.

Strive as well as you can to enter deeply with the heart into the church reading and singing and to imprint these on the tablets of the heart.

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)