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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.

If you are not willing to repent through freely choosing to suffer, unsought sufferings will providentially be imposed on you.

The way to knowledge is detachment and humility, without which no one will see the Lord.

The roof of any house stands upon the foundations and the rest of the structure. The foundations themselves are laid in order to carry the roof. This is both useful and necessary, for the roof cannot stand without the foundations and the foundations are absolutely useless without the roof-- no help to any living creature. In the same way the grace of God is preserved by the practice of the commandments, and the observance of these commandments is laid down like foundations through the gift of God. The grace of the Spirit cannot remain with us without the practice of the commandments, but the practice of the commandments is of no help or advantage to us without the grace of God.

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.

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

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

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

Learn to desire humility, for that will cover all your sins. All sin is hateful to God, but the most hateful of all is pride of heart. Do not consider yourself learned or wise, or all your toil will be lost and your ship will arrive empty at the shore.

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

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The principle characteristic of this present, temporal life is temptation.

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.

If a man has a friend and he is absolutely certain that his friend loves him, and if that friend does something to cause him suffering and be troublesome to him, he will be convinced that his friend acts out of love and he will never believe that his friend does it to harm him. How much more ought we to be convinced about God who created us, who drew us out of nothingness to existence and life, and who became a man for our sake and died for us, and who does everything out of love for us?

'When ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are ye, seeing that ye are become partakers of the sufferings of Christ' (1 Peter 3:14; 4:13). Therefore, when you are unoppressed do not rejoice; and when tribulations come upon you, do not be sullen, accounting them as foreign to God’s way. For His path has been trodden from the ages and from all generations by the cross and by death. But how is it with you, that the afflictions on the path seem to you to be off the path? Do you not wish to follow the steps of the saints? Or have you plans for devising some way of your own, and of journeying therein without suffering?

Behold, this is the true and the Christian humility. In this you will be able to achieve victory over every vice, by attributing to God rather than to yourself the fact that you have won.

The humility which in due time and by God's grace, after many struggles and tears, is given by heaven to those who seek it is something incompararably stronger and higher than the sense of abasement felt by those who have lapsed from holiness. This higher humility is granted only to those who have attained true perfection and are no longer under the sway of sin.

Temptations are sent for improvement when God delivers his righteous ones to various temptations, humiliating them for some slight and unimportant offense, or to increase their purity, in order that every uncleanliness of thought, or... dross which He sees they have harbored in secret, may be burnt away in this present life, and that so He may bring them, as it were pure gold, to the future judgment...

There is nothing more powerful than lowliness.

Our achievements must never loom large in our eyes; only our failures. But this must never lead us to despondency - the constant temptation - only to humility.

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

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