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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.

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

A man who has embraced poverty offers up prayer that is pure, while a man who loves possessions prays to material images.

A lover of riches is never satisfied, no matter how many possessions he accumulates, but the more he acquires daily, the more his appetite increases; and a person forcibly pulled away from a stream of pure water before he has quenched his thirst feels even more thirsty. In a similar way, once one has experienced the taste of God, one can never be satisfied or have enough of it, but however much one is enriched by this wealth one still feels oneself to be poor. Christians do not set great store by their own lives, but regard themselves rather as rightly set at nought by God and as everyone’s servants.

Do not the angels differ from us in this respect, that they do not want so many things as we do? Therefore the less we need, the more we are on our way to them; the more we need, the more we sink down to this perishable life.

St. Paul says: 'The person engaged in spiritual warfare exercises self control in all things' (I Cor. 9:25). Aware of all that is said in divine Scripture, let us lead our life with self-control, especially in regard to food.

Fear God and keep His commandments both in your feelings and in your intellect. If you force yourself to keep them in your intellect, bit by bit you will attain to fulfilling them in your feelings.

All other possessions do not really belong to the one who has them or to the one who has acquired them for they are exchanged back and forth like a game of dice. Only virtue among our possessions cannot be taken away, but remains with us when we live and when we die.

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

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

Love and self-control purify the soul.

The fathers say that a man who sets store by the gold and silver he can amass does not believe that there is a God who provides for him.

Rivalry over material possessions has made us forget the counsel of the Lord, who urged us to take no thought for earthly things, but to seek only the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt. 6:33).

The desire for possessions is dangerous and terrible, knowing no satiety; it drives the soul which it controls to the heights of evil. Therefore, let us drive it away vigorously from the beginning. For once it has become master it cannot be overcome.

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 you lay down rules for yourself, do not disobey yourself; for he who cheats himself is self-deluded.

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

We must resist and avoid like deadly poison the desire to possess earthly goods.

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

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)