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

We have become so inattentive to the work of our salvation that we misinterpret many other words in Holy Scripture as well, all because we do not seek the grace of God and in the pride of our minds do not allow it to dwell in our souls. That is why we are without true enlightenment from the Lord, which He sends into the hearts of men who hunger and thirst wholeheartedly for God’s righteousness or holiness.

Every man who has committed sin, has stopped up the senses of his soul with the mud of pleasure.

For never is a man forced into sin by another’s fault, unless he have, stowed away in his heart, matter for evil deeds. Nor is a man to be held a victim of sudden deception if at the sight of a woman’s beauty he fall into an abyss of vile lust. Rather is it that diseases of soul, deeply hidden away and lost to view, come then to the surface on the occasion of the sight.

Believe me, brethren, the more we are now in earnest to keep ourselves free from sin, the more confident shall we then be in His Presence.

Sometimes, when we are overcome by pride or impatience and are unwilling to amend our ill-conditioned and disordered way of life, we complain that what we need is solitude, as though in solitude, meeting with no provocation, we should find there the virtue of patience, making excuses for our slackness, and laying the blame of our agitation not upon our own lack of patience, but ascribing it to the faults of our brethren, whereas so long as we impute to others the causes of our own faults, we shall never be able to reach the goal of patience and of perfection.

If you feel no pang in committing minor offences you will through them fall into major transgressions.

Sin disfigures a man, while grace brings beauty.

Keep a strict watch against any appearance of pride: it appears imperceptibly, particularly in time of vexation and irritability against others for quite unimportant causes.

The Holy Fathers say, 'Pride goeth before a fall, and humility before grace.' Whereas faintheartedness is the mother of impatience.

God seeks nothing else from us men except that we do not sin; this alone. But this is not a work of law; it is rather a careful guarding of the image and dignity from above. In these things, affirmed in our nature and bearing the radiant garment of the Spirit, we shall abide in God and He in us. We shall be called good, and sons of God by adoption, marked in the light of our knowledge of God.

All sin is due to sensual pleasure, all forgiveness to hardship and distress.

I prefer a defeat accompanied by humility to a victory accompanied by pride.

The only thing God requires of us is that we do not sin. But this is achieved, not by acting according to the law, but by carefully guarding the divine image in us and our supernal dignity. When we thus live in our natural state, wearing the resplendent robe of the Spirit, we dwell in God and God dwells in us. Then we are called gods by adoption and sons of God, sealed by the light of the knowledge of God.

Those who have sinned must not despair. Let that never be. For we are condemned not for the multitude of evils, but because we do not want to repent...

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

The man who has come to loathe sin has mounted the first rung of the heavenly ladder.

Arrogance cannot bear to see itself scorned and humility held in honor.

'And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.' For we have many sins. For we offend both in word and in thought, and very many things we do worthy of condemnation; and 'if we say that we have no sin' (I Jn. 1:8), we lie, as John says...The offenses committed against us are slight and trivial, and easily settled; but those which we have committed against God are great, and need such mercy as His only is. Take heed, therefore, lest for the slight and trivial sins against you, you shut out for yourself forgiveness from God for your very grievous sins.

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5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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