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

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.

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.

He who has tasted the things on high easily despises what is below. But he who has not tasted the things above finds joy in possessions.

The more you love money, the more securely you close the Kingdom of God.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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).

What is it that commends our own life? Is it miracles, or is it a life scrupulously and uprightly lived? It is rather from the latter that miracles arise, and to that they tend. For he that lives a worthy life, draws this grace upon himself; and whosoever receives such graces receives them that he may help others to amend their lives. For even Christ wrought miracles that He might the more be accepted as worthy of belief, and so might the more attract men to Himself, and by this means bring sanctity into their lives.

The wealth is not a possession, it is not property, it is a loan for use.

One who is capable of seeing himself is better than one who has been made worthy to see angels.

Nothing is better than to realize one's weakness and ignorance, and nothing is worse than not to be aware of them.

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.

Self-knowledge is a true idea of one's spiritual growth, and an unbroken remembrance of one's slightest sins.

As earth thrown over it extinguishes a fire burning in a stove, so worldly cares and every kind of attachment to something, however small and insignificant, destroys the warmth of the heart which was there at first.

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

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

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