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

The images of worldly vanity, upon which we have looked with entire pleasure and hearty sympathy, effeminate, weaken, and disturb the soul; they deprive us of purity of heart and of boldness before God.

If they will praise you, you must remain silent—do not say anything.

It is impossible to look to heaven with one eye and to the earth with another. Likewise, it is impossible for our soul to cling at once to earthly and to heavenly things. We must select one or the other and cling to it...

Worldly virtues promote human glory, spiritual virtues the glory of God.

Like a man wearing an all-silk garment, if someone throws a dirty rag at him he leaves so as not to ruin his expensive clothes, it is with the saints, who are dressed in virtues, and avoid human glory in order not to be defiled.

Whoever reproaches us gives us a gift, but whoever praises us, steals from us.

Do not love the world, all the deceit of the world, for it passes by quickly along with all its pleasures. Only he who does the will of God remains unto the ages.

How harmful is the praise of man! Even though a person may have done something worthy of praise, when he enjoys the sound of praise he is already deprived of future glory, according to teachings of the holy fathers.

Let us therefore not cling to things that even now are fleeing from us, but to things that remain and endure, so that we may be blessed with them for ever, by the grace and loving kindness of Jesus Christ our Lord...

You must flee from sensual things. Verily, every time a man comes close to a struggle with sensuality, he is like a man standing at the edge of a deep lake, and the enemy throws him in whenever he likes. But if the man lives far from sensual things, he is like one who stands at a distance from the lake, so that even if the enemy entices him in order to throw him to the bottom, God sends him help at the very moment that the enemy is drawing him away and doing him violence.

Nothing doth so hurt and dim the eye of the soul as the crowd of worldly anxieties and the swarm of desires.

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

Living in the world, benefiting by the worldly society of men, it is a sin to evade responsibilities and to thrust them on others.

Our enemies (demons) fell because of their pride, and call us to follow them, and bring us feelings of praise. And if your soul accepts that praise, then grace will depart, until the soul becomes humble again. And so all your life you must learn the humility of Christ.

Blind your eyes to all that is held in honor in the world, so that you may be held worthy to have the peace which comes from God reign in your heart.

The world is everything that holds us and satisfies us sensuously: that within us which has not known God (John 17:25).

A life lived in the world can be as good, in the eyes of God, as one spent in a monastery. It is indeed only the keeping of God's commandments, love of all, and a true sense of humility that matter, wherever we are.

Let us love silence till the world is made to die in our hearts. Let us always remember death, and in this thought draw near to God in our heart--and the pleasures of this world will have our scorn.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)