• 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.

Let us not put off from day to day, without observing how sin is injuring us.

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

Do not by any means allow yourself to open both ears to the slanderers and to draw your conclusions and decisions on the basis of what they alone have to say, and thereby judging the case in absentia without the presence of the person slandered to defend himself. Oftentimes many unjust and irrational decisions have followed from such slanderous accusations.

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.

Receive me today, O Son of God, as a partaker of Thy mystical Supper; for I shall not speak of Thy mystery to Thine enemies, neither give Thee a kiss as did Judas. But like a thief, I shall confess Thee. Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.

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

Let us avail ourselves of the example of that holy staretz who used to say: 'Depart, evil one; come, beloved!' Once a brother who overheard his words and supposed that the staretz was speaking to another man asked him 'With whom are you conversing, father?' And the staretz answered: 'I am driving away evil thoughts and calling the good ones to my side.' And so, if we are tempted, let us use the words of that staretz, or others like them.

Just as desire and rage multiply our sins, so self-control and humility erase them.

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

Take care never to receive Communion while you have anything against anyone, even if this is only a hostile thought. Not until you have brought about reconciliation through repentance should you communicate, [receive the Mysteries]. But you will learn this, too, through prayer.

Do not lend your ear to the tongue of the slanderer, nor your tongue to the ear of him who likes malicious talk, speaking or listening with enjoyment to words against one's neighbor. Cut yourself off from them, lest you fall away from love of God and find yourself exiled from eternal life.

Without frequent Communion we will not be able to free ourselves from the passions nor raise ourselves to the heights of sobriety.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

Just as breathing is necessary for life, and just as food is necessary for the sustenance of the body, so is frequent Communion necessary for the life of the soul and for the sustenance of its substance, or rather it is incomparably more necessary.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)