• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

The best form of prayer is one that implants the clearest idea of God in the soul and thus makes space for the presence of God within us.

Prayer requires the inseparable presence and cooperation of the attention. With attention, prayer becomes the inalienable property of the person praying; in the absence of attention, it is extraneous to the person praying. With attention, it bears abundant fruit; without attention, it produces thorns and thistles. The fruit of prayer consists in illumination of mind and compunction of heart; in the quickening of the soul with the life of the Spirit. Thorns and thistles are a sign of deadness of soul and pharisaical self-esteem which springs from the hardening of a heart which is contented and elated by the quantity of the prayers and the time spent in reciting those prayers.

The one who prays ought never to halt his movement of sublime ascent toward God. For just as we should understand the ascent 'from strength to strength' as the progress in the practice of the virtues, 'from glory to glory' (2 Cor. 3:18) as the advance in the spiritual knowledge of contemplation, and the transfer from the letter of sacred writing to its spirit, so in the same way the one who is settled in the place of prayer should lift his mind from human matters and the attention of the soul to more divine realities.

Prayer is a branch (of a tree) of meekness, and freedom from anger. Prayer is an expression of joy and thankfulness. Prayer is a remedy against sorrow and depression.

To bear a grudge and pray, means to sow seed on the sea and expect a harvest.

Whether you pray with brethren or alone, try to pray not simply as a routine, but with conscious awareness of your prayer. Conscious awareness of prayer is concentration accompanied by reverence, compunction and distress of soul as it confesses its sin with inward sorrow.

Oh, what great happiness and bliss, what exaltation it is to address oneself to the Eternal Father. Always, without fail, value this joy which has been accorded to you by God's infinite grace and do not forget it during your prayers; God, the angels and God's holy men listen to you.

The soul of prayer is attentiveness. As the body without a soul is dead, so prayer without attentiveness is dead.

Pray simply. Do not expect to find in your heart any remarkable gift of prayer. Consider yourself unworthy of it. Then you will find peace. Use the empty cold dryness of your prayer as food for your humility. Repeat constantly: I am not worthy; Lord, I am not worthy! But say it calmly; without agitation.

We must always pray, so that the Lord will tell us what we must do, and the Lord will not leave us in confusion.

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

Ask the angels and the saints to intercede for you, just as you'd ask people who are alive. Stand face to face with them, in the belief that they are also standing face to face with you.

Pray and sigh, pleading with God Himself to grant you zeal and inclination: for without Him we are good for no task whatsoever.

The prayers of those who hold grudges is sowing on stone.

Stand at prayer before the invisible God as if you saw Him, and with the conviction that He sees you and is looking at you attentively.

Pray firstly to be purified of passions, secondly to be freed from ignorance and forgetfulness, and thirdly to be delivered from all temptation and forsaking.

Until we have acquired true prayer, we are like those who introduce children to walking. Make the effort to raise up, or rather, to enclose your mind within the words of your prayer; and if, like a child, it gets tired and falters, raise it up again. The mind, after all, is naturally unstable, but the God Who can do everything can also give it firm endurance. Persevere in this, therefore, and do not grow weary...

When praying, endeavor by every means to feel in your heart the truth and the power of the words of the prayer; feed yourself upon them as upon an imperishable food; water your heart with them as with a dew; and warm yourself by them as by means of a beneficial fire.

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Parish

Mailing Address

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

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