• Vespers: Saturdays 5PM
  • Divine Liturgy: Sundays 9:30AM
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Quotes

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

A prayer offered while one has any cause to reproach a fellow man is an impure prayer. There is only one whom the praying person may and must reproach, and that is himself. Without self-reproach, your prayer is as worthless as it is while you are reproaching someone else in your heart. Perhaps you ask: How can one learn this? The answer is: One learns it through prayer.

Who has conquered the body? He who has made the heart contrite. Who then has made the heart contrite? He who has denied himself.

But, say the saints, now that you recognize the darkness in your own heart and the weakness of your flesh, you lose all desire to pass judgment on your neighbor. Out of your own darkness you see the heavenly light that shines in all created things reflected the clearer: you cannot detect the sins of others while your own are so great. For it is in your eager striving for perfection that you first perceive your own imperfection. And only when you have seen your imperfection, can you be perfected. Thus perfection proceeds out of weakness.

Unless a man keeps the commandments of God, he cannot progress, even in a single virtue.

The first duty of a Christian, of a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ, is to deny oneself. To deny oneself means to give up one's bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad desires and thoughts; to quench and suppress bad thoughts; to avoid occasions of sin; not to do or desire anything from self-love but to do everything out of love for God. To deny oneself means, according to the Apostle Paul, to be dead to sin and the world, but alive to God.

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

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

Increasing self-criticism is the sign of increasing humility. Indeed, there is no clearer sign.

No one can be saved without the renunciation of his will, even though he might struggle fervently, for our will and our manner are like a bronze wall between us and God.

There is yet another reason that may cause our prayer to go unanswered: namely, that though we pray we yet continue in sin.

If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.

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

If a man accuses himself, he is protected on all sides.

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

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

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.

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

How much joy, how much peace of soul would a man not have wherever he went... if he was one who habitually accused himself.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)