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Quotes

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

If a person swallows too much food, he is inviting impure thoughts. If he mortifies the stomach, he is creating pure thoughts. Often a lion if it is caressed becomes domesticated, whereas the more you coddle the body, the more it goes wild.

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.

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.

It is not food that is evil but gluttony; not childbearing but fornication; not money but cupidity; not glory but vainglory. If this be so there is no evil in anything that is, except wrong use, which results from our mind neglecting to cultivate our nature (the powers of the soul, and their right direction).

The belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation. The cause of the overthrow and wantonness of Sodom was not drunkenness through wine, but fullness of bread. Hear the Lord rebuking Jerusalem through the prophet. 'For how did thy sister Sodom sin, except in that she ate her bread in fullness and abundance?' (Ezek. xvi. 49)

And the opinion, extremely popular in our times, that 'it's all the same which church you go to; after all, God is one' is in agreement with this tendency. Yes! God is one, but, you know, He also gave us one faith; He created one Church for us, not many different faiths and 'churches.' This is confirmed by the holy Apostle Paul when he says, 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,' and so we Christians should form 'one body and one spirit,' as we are called to 'in one hope of our calling' (Eph. 4:4-6). If there is only one true faith and only one true Church, then as a consequence all other faiths and 'churches' are false, not true. How then can anyone say that all faiths and 'churches' are of equal value and that 'it is all the same which church you go to.' Therefore one can and must speak not of the ecumenical unification of everyone for the creation of some new Church, but only of the restoration of union between all who have fallen away and the one true Church of Christ to which Christ the Savior Himself gave the great and sure promise that 'the gates of hell will not prevail against it' (Matt. 16:18).

Understand what I say: there can be no knowledge of the mysteries of God on a full stomach.

This day the earth became Heaven for us. Not because the stars descended from the heavens to earth, but because the apostles ascended to Heaven by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was now abundantly poured forth, and so the whole world was transformed into heaven; not because human nature was changed, but because there was a change in the direction of the will. For there was found a tax-gatherer, and he was transformed into an evangelist. There was found a persecutor, and he was changed into an apostle. There was found a robber, and he was led into Paradise. There was found a prostitute, and she was made the equal of virgins. There were found wise men, and they were taught the Gospels. Evil fled away, and gentleness took its place. Slavery was put away, and freedom came in its stead. And all debts were forgiven, and the grace of God was conferred. Therefore Heaven became earth.

As a cloud veils the light of the moon, so the vapors of the belly banish the wisdom of God from the soul.

One should not ponder divine matters on a full stomach, say the ascetics. For the well-fed, even the most superficial secrets of the Trinity lie hidden.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)