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

'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.

Being delivered from bodily sins is not enough, we must also cleanse the inner energy which dwells in our souls.

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

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

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.

He who does not consciously choose to distance himself from a cause for sin, will be drawn to sin, even against his will.

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.

Greater therefore is the rejoicing of heaven over the sinner converted than upon the soul that remained just. A captain in battle will feel a warmer regard for the soldier who at first faltered and ran, and then had bravely fought back, than over the one who had never yielded yet had never thrust bravely forward. So will the farmer love more the fields that cleaned of their weeds now bear a fruitful yield, than the land which had never known thorns, yet had never yielded a bountiful crop.

Woe is he who knowingly chooses to sin with the intention to repent when morning comes, for he knows not what the coming day or the night that precedes it will bring.

Do not stir up a memory that will cover your prayer with mud, do not root around in the soil of your old sins.

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

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

Do not hate the sinner. Become a proclaimer of God's grace, seeing that God provides for you even though you are unworthy.

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

Observe your thoughts, and beware of what you have in your heart and your spirit, knowing that the demons put ideas into you so as to corrupt your soul by making it think of that which is not right, in order to turn your spirit from the consideration of your sins and of God.

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

There is a sin which is always 'unto death' [1 Jn 5:16]; the sin which we have not repented. Even a saint's prayers will not be heard for the unrepented sin. The person who repents correctly does not imagine that his sins are cancelled through his own effort; but knows that through this effort he makes peace with God.

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

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

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