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

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

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

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

He who smells the smell of one's own foul odor doesn't smell the foul odor of anyone else.

Should you accuse and condemn yourself before God for the sins on your conscience, you will be justified for doing so.

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

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.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

Self-accusation before God is something that is very necessary for us; and humility of heart is extremely advantageous in our lives, above all at the time of prayer. For prayer requires great attention and needs a proper awareness, otherwise it will turn out to be unacceptable and rejected, and `it will be turned back empty' to our bosom.

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.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)