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

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

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

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

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.

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

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.

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.

Reading the Scriptures is a great means of security against sinning.

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.

The ignorance of Scripture is a great cliff and a deep abyss; to know nothing of the divine laws is a great betrayal of salvation.

Those who have sinned must not despair. Let that never be. For we are condemned not for the multitude of evils, but because we do not want to repent...

If you feel no pang in committing minor offences you will through them fall into major transgressions.

The conscience is nature's book. He who applies what he reads there experiences God's help.

Believe me, brethren, the more we are now in earnest to keep ourselves free from sin, the more confident shall we then be in His Presence.

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye like a mirror in which the appearance of our inner being can be seen.

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).

Do not disregard your conscience, which always counsels you of the best. It puts before you divine and angelic advice; it frees you from the hidden stains of your heart, and will make you the gift of free speech with God at the time of your departure.

Filters
Search By Keyword
Topics (Love, Anger, Confession, etc.)
See more See less
Parish

Mailing Address

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

Email, Phone, and Fax

[email protected]
440-526-5192 (Phone)