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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.

Whoever repents sincerely is prepared to withstand any sorrow: hunger and homelessness, cold and heat, illness and poverty, humiliation and banishment, lies and slander, for the soul seeks God and does not concern itself with anything worldly, but instead prays with a clear mind.

Repentance raises the fallen, mourning knocks at the gate of Heaven, and holy humility opens it.

Repentance signifies regret, change of mind. The distinguishing marks of repentance are contrition, tears, aversion towards sin, and love of the good.

Repentance is the door of mercy, opened to those who seek it.

He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort which cancels his former sins, but through this effort he makes his peace with God.

When tested by some trial you should try to find out not why or through whom it came, but only how to endure it gratefully, without distress or rancor.

He who has repented travels towards the Lord.

The Lord ordereth 'all things in measure and weight,' and brings on us the temptations which do not exceed our power to endure them, but tests all that fight in the cause of true religion by affliction, not suffering them to be tempted above that they are able to bear.

It is always possible to make a new start by means of repentance. 'You fell,' it is written, 'now arise'(cf. Prov. 24:16). And if you fall again, then rise again, without despairing at all of your salvation, no matter what happens. So long as you do not surrender yourself willingly to the enemy, your patient endurance, combined with self-reproach, will suffice for your salvation. 'For at one time we ourselves went astray in our folly and disobedience,' says St. Paul. '... Yet He saved us, not because of any good things we had done, but in His mercy' (Tit. 3:3,5).

If a man tries to overcome temptations without prayer and patient endurance, he will become more entangled in them instead of driving them away.

The Fathers used to say, “If temptation befall thee in the place thou dost inhabit, desert not the place in the time of temptation: for if thou dost, wheresoever thou goest, thou shalt find what thou fliest before thee.”

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...

Without temptations, pure souls are not known, virtue does not show, patience is not discernible. Without temptations, it is impossible for the soul to become healthy. They are the cleansing fire which makes the soul pure and bright.

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

This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.

The grace of repentance, which acts in those who struggle, is a patristic inheritance. It is a divine transaction and exchange in which we give dust and receive heaven. We exchange matter for the Spirit. Every drop of sweat, every pain, every ascesis for God is an exchange.

Grace always precedes temptation, as if to notify you saying, 'Prepare yourself and lock your doors.'

Trials are of two kinds. Either affliction will test our souls as gold is tried in a furnace, and make trial of us through patience, or the very prosperity of our lives will oftentimes, for many, be itself an occasion of trial and temptation. For it is equally difficult to keep the soul upright and undefeated in the midst of afflictions, as to keep oneself from insolence and pride in prosperity.

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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)