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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.

There is one method which, if practiced with full attention, will seldom allow anything passionate to slip unnoticed into the heart. This is to examine our thoughts and feelings, so as to discover which they tend: towards pleasing God or towards pleasing ourselves.

The wealth is not a possession, it is not property, it is a loan for use.

It is impossible for the soul to be liberated from turbulent thoughts without the virtue of non-possessiveness. And without peace of the bodily senses it is impossible for the soul to have a peaceful intellect. And if it does not come into temptations it will not acquire wisdom of the Holy Spirit. And without laborious and persistence in reading, it will not come to the discernment of thoughts. And without the stillness of thoughts, the intellect cannot move to seek the hidden mysteries of God.

He who has tasted the things on high easily despises what is below. But he who has not tasted the things above finds joy in possessions.

Compunction comes when you consider how much you have grieved God Who is so good, so sweet, so merciful, so kind, and entirely full of love; Who was crucified and suffered everything for us. When you meditate on these things and other things the Lord has suffered, they bring compunction.

Go, sell all that belongs to you and give it to the poor and taking up the cross, deny yourself; in this way you will be able to pray without distraction.

Let each one consider within himself what faults he must remedy in himself, what good work he may yet do, what sin he may wipe out from his soul, so that by this he may become better. And if he finds that he has made progress in this excellent market, through fasting, and is aware that there is need for much care for his wounds, then let him draw near. If however he remains neglectful of himself, and has only his fasting to show, and makes no progress in other directions, then let him remain outside, and let him return only when all his sins are cleansed.

Rivalry over material possessions has made us forget the counsel of the Lord, who urged us to take no thought for earthly things, but to seek only the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt. 6:33).

The more you love money, the more securely you close the Kingdom of God.

A man who has embraced poverty offers up prayer that is pure, while a man who loves possessions prays to material images.

The desire for possessions is dangerous and terrible, knowing no satiety; it drives the soul which it controls to the heights of evil. Therefore, let us drive it away vigorously from the beginning. For once it has become master it cannot be overcome.

Do not the angels differ from us in this respect, that they do not want so many things as we do? Therefore the less we need, the more we are on our way to them; the more we need, the more we sink down to this perishable life.

We must resist and avoid like deadly poison the desire to possess earthly goods.

How destructive to the heart is even momentary attachment for anything earthly.

Every evening we must test ourselves as to how the day passed with us, and every morning we again should test ourselves as to how the night passed.

The way to attain compunction is an attentive life. ‘The beginning of repentance comes from the fear of God and attention,’ as the holy martyr Boniface says.

The man who is conscious of his sins is greater than he who profits the whole world by the sight of his countenance.

A lover of riches is never satisfied, no matter how many possessions he accumulates, but the more he acquires daily, the more his appetite increases; and a person forcibly pulled away from a stream of pure water before he has quenched his thirst feels even more thirsty. In a similar way, once one has experienced the taste of God, one can never be satisfied or have enough of it, but however much one is enriched by this wealth one still feels oneself to be poor. Christians do not set great store by their own lives, but regard themselves rather as rightly set at nought by God and as everyone’s servants.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)