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

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

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

Ignorance of the scriptures is a precipice and a deep abyss.

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

A sign of deliverance from our falls is the continual reckoning of ourselves as debtors.

If you love to enjoy true and complete delight from the Scriptures, seek to read them not merely with simple understanding, but with deeds and practical realities. Moreover, seek to read them not merely for the mere love of learning but also for the sake of ascetic endeavors & discipline, as St. Mark wrote: 'Read the words of Holy Scripture with an eye to practical applications and not merely to be puffed up by any fine thought that you may receive from it.' Another Father said: 'This is why the lover of knowledge must also be a lover of discipline. For knowledge alone does not give light to a lamp.'

The more a man struggles to do good, the more fear grows in him, until it shows him his slightest faults, those which he thought of as nothing while he was still in the darkness of ignorance.

Reading the scriptures is a great safeguard against sin.

I wish I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of perfection does not consist in many devices, nor in much cogitation, but in denying themselves completely and yielding themselves to suffer everything for the love of Christ. And if there is failure in this exercise, all other methods of walking in the spiritual way are merely a beating about the bush, and profitless trifling, although a person should have very high contemplation and communication with God.

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

Put aside bodily considerations when you stand in prayer, lest the bite of a flea, a gnat or a fly deprive you of the greatest gain afforded by prayer.

The Scriptures were not given merely that we might have them in books, but that we might engrave them on our hearts.

As for uprooting your passions, begin with self-reproach and with awareness of your own weaknesses; and consider yourself to be deserving of afflictions.

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

Self-condemnation always brings peace and rest to the heart.

He alone knows himself in the best way who thinks of himself as being nothing.

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

The martyrs will show their torments, the ascetics their good works; but what will I have to show but my apathy and my incessant indulgence?

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)