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

People of high spirit bear offence nobly and gladly, but only the holy and righteous can pass through praise without harm.

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

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.

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

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

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

It is a great work to shake from the soul the praise of men, but to reject the praise of demons is greater.

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.

Sin, to one who loves God, is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle. The true Christian is a warrior fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen enemy to his heavenly homeland.

Paschal joy is a foretaste of eternal joy in the approaching kingdom of Christ.

A true monk does no reproach and does not praise.

Whoever reproaches us gives us a gift, but whoever praises us, steals from us.

A treasure that is known is quickly spent: and even so any virtue that is commented on and made a public show of is destroyed. Even as wax is melted before the face of fire, so is the soul enfeebled by praise, and loses the toughness of its virtue.

If they will praise you, you must remain silent—do not say anything.

'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.

The only thing God requires of us is that we do not sin. But this is achieved, not by acting according to the law, but by carefully guarding the divine image in us and our supernal dignity. When we thus live in our natural state, wearing the resplendent robe of the Spirit, we dwell in God and God dwells in us. Then we are called gods by adoption and sons of God, sealed by the light of the knowledge of God.

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.

If however any one thinks that he is not being burned when sinning, to him the Scripture saith, Shall a man wrap up fire in his bosom, and not burn his clothes? For sin burns the sinews of the soul, and breaks the spiritual bones of the mind, and darkens the light of the heart.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)