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

A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.

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

A prayer offered while one has any cause to reproach a fellow man is an impure prayer. There is only one whom the praying person may and must reproach, and that is himself. Without self-reproach, your prayer is as worthless as it is while you are reproaching someone else in your heart. Perhaps you ask: How can one learn this? The answer is: One learns it through prayer.

The martyrs will show their torments, the ascetics their good works; but what will I have to show but my apathy and my incessant indulgence?

Grace always precedes temptation, as if to notify you saying, 'Prepare yourself and lock your doors.'

The adversary of our life, the devil, employs many devices to make our sins seem small to us. Often he cloaks them with forgetfulness, so that, after suffering a little on their account, we no longer trouble to lament over them. But, my brethren, let us not forget our offences, even if we wrongly think that they have been forgiven through repentance; let us always remember our sinful acts and never cease to mourn over them, so that we may acquire humility as our constant companion, and thus escape the snares of self-esteem and pride.

When tested by some trial you should try to find out not why or through whom it came, but only how to endure it gratefully, without distress or rancor.

The more a man struggles to do good, the more fear grows in him, until it shows him his slightest faults, those which he thought of as nothing while he was still in the darkness of ignorance.

Do not regard the feelings of a person who speaks to you about his neighbor disparagingly, but rather say to him: 'Stop, brother! I fall into graver sins every day, so how can I criticize him?' In this way you will achieve two things: you will heal yourself and your neighbor with one plaster. This is one of the shortest ways to the forgiveness of sins; I mean, not to judge. 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged,' (Luke 6:37).

Humble yourself, reproach yourself, consider yourself the very last and the very worst of all, condemn no one - and you will receive God's mercy.

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

Self-condemnation always brings peace and rest to the heart.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

How much joy, how much peace of soul would a man not have wherever he went... if he was one who habitually accused himself.

As for uprooting your passions, begin with self-reproach and with awareness of your own weaknesses; and consider yourself to be deserving of afflictions.

If a man accuses himself, he is protected on all sides.

Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.

But, say the saints, now that you recognize the darkness in your own heart and the weakness of your flesh, you lose all desire to pass judgment on your neighbor. Out of your own darkness you see the heavenly light that shines in all created things reflected the clearer: you cannot detect the sins of others while your own are so great. For it is in your eager striving for perfection that you first perceive your own imperfection. And only when you have seen your imperfection, can you be perfected. Thus perfection proceeds out of weakness.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)