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  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

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

So long as the soul is sick with passions, its senses have no perception of the spiritual; and the soul does not even know how to desire it, but desires it only from hearsay and writings. The power of the soul is cured of these diseases by the hidden practice of commandments, with sharing in Christ's passion.

Therefore, if you wish to conquer the passions, cut off the love of pleasure; but if you are pursuing food, you will spend a life in passions; the soul will not be humbled if the flesh is not deprived of bread. It is not possible to deliver the soul from perdition while protecting the body from unpleasantness.

Free me from my wanton habits before the end overtakes me...

The intellect becomes a stranger to the things of this world when its attachment to the senses has been completely sundered.

The holy Fathers' counsel is to begin with small things, for, says Ephraim the Syrian, how can you put out a great fire before you have learned to quench a small one? If you wish to set yourself free from a great suffering, crush the small desires, say the holy Fathers. Do not suppose that the one can be separated from the others: they all hang together like a long chain or a net.

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

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.

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

If the main goal of the repentant sinner should be total, light-bearing and blessed communion with God, then the main hindrance to this is the existence of the passions still active and working in him - the virtues being as yet unsealed in him - and the unrighteousness of his powers. Therefore his main work upon conversion and repentance should be the uprooting of the passions and sealing the virtues - in a word, correcting himself.

Even if thy soul should suffer somewhat from an offense, keep the sorrow within thyself. For it is said: 'Within me my heart is troubled' (Psalm 142:4), that is, the passion has not come out, but has been humbled like a wave that has broken up on the shore. Calm thy raging heart. Let thy passions be ashamed at the presence of reason in thee, as playful children are ashamed before a man commanding respect.

Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passions.

Strive to love every man equally, and you will simultaneously expel all the passions.

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.

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.

If we cut off the causes of the passions for only a short while, and occupy ourselves with spiritual contemplation without making it our sole and constant concern, we easily revert to the passions of the flesh, gaining nothing from our labor but theoretical knowledge coupled with conceit. The result is a gradual darkening of this knowledge itself and a complete turning of the intellect towards material things.

Spiritual freedom is release from the passions; without Christ’s mercy you cannot attain it.

You cannot destroy the passions on your own, but ask God, and He will destroy them, if this is profitable for you.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)